The Giver (2014)

Long delayed film adaptation of the award winning YA novel by Lois Lowry. The biggest problem I have with adapting this novel into a more-or-less straight forward film is that in doing so you largely eliminate perhaps the books greatest virtue, its ability to totally confuse and frustrate its middle-school aged readers. For many young people The Giver is their first existential novel, and sadly for many given the status of adult fiction reading in this country, their last. By virtue of not spelling everything out, and the reader having to visualize the books happenings themselves, The Giver and its philosophy laden dystopian plot forces its younger readers to confront introspective topics that at say 12 or 13 they are just on the verge of being able to mentally sort out. The frustration is good, it forces the mind to grow and think about things below the surface. A movie can't do this the same way, especially one that is steeped in the conventions of popular genera like this movie is.

That being said I suppose this movie is fine to watch after reading the novel, the young reader should have to ruminate on this themselves for a time before employing the visual aid. As a movie The Giver does some things that I liked. It's pretty true to the story as I remember it, though its been around 20 years since I read the book. The transition from black and white in ignorance to color once enlightened has been done before, but as a trop is true to the book. The vivid 'flashbacks' of montage memory was a neat touch, and the performances rang from good (Jeff Bridges, Meryl Steep) to mediocre (largely everybody else), but given that most of these characters have lived their lives devoid of true feeling a certain woodenness in performance works for this piece. In all this is a rather standard genera rendering of  what's really a great book for pubescent youth, it should never replace the source material but as a refresher or supplement its just fine.  It evoked in me a pleasant reminder of the source material well enough to earn it ***