Wide Release 8/15/14
Viewed at El Con with Sheila 8/17/14
RT Critic: 32 Audience: 68
cag: 4.5/Liked it a whole lot
Directed by Philip Noyce
The Weinstein Company]
from the book by Lois Lowry
Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard
My thoughts: If you're the kind of person that gets upset because there are a lot of changes from the book, you're probably going to be a bit disappointed in this movie. There were definitely changes, but they all worked. In the previews I couldn't help be sneer a little because it seems that they had added some sort of love interest for Jonas. Considering the direction they took with the ending, it all worked perfectly. Good movie. Excellent, actually. And I love the different actors that played the different parts. The only questions I have, the only problem with it as I left the theater, was that the Meryl Streep character also seemed to have all the memories. My problem was not that she had them, that no reference had been made to this fact.
When the movie was over, a young couple sitting behind us made the comment that it was a little slow in places. There was no slowness for me. Granted, I've read the book seven or eight times at least so it was interesting to see all the wonderful changes and additions. The story is certainly no supposed to be action-filled. It is nothing like Hunger Games or Divergent. The giver is the predecessor to all the current dystopian stories. And I love and admire it as such.
I've heard that Lois Lowry is quite satisfied with the end product. If she is, so am I!
RT Summary: The haunting story of THE GIVER centers on Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), a young man who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Yet as he begins to spend time with The Giver (Jeff Bridges), who is the sole keeper of all the community's memories, Jonas quickly begins to discover the dark and deadly truths of his community's secret past. With this newfound power of knowledge, he realizes that the stakes are higher than imagined - a matter of life and death for himself and those he loves most. At extreme odds, Jonas knows that he must escape their world to protect them all - a challenge that no one has ever succeeded at before. THE GIVER is based on Lois Lowry's beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
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