The Giver

In a futuristic society established after the advent of a catastrophic war, citizens dwell in peace and order. Every element of existence is assigned and overseen by elders aiming to ensure the eradication of unhappiness continues uninterrupted, from the constitution of family units to the roles each adult will play when they reach maturity. As Jonas (Brenton Thwaites, Maleficent) approaches the ceremonial bestowing of his profession at the age of eighteen, he is happy in his carefully controlled life, until he is selected for a prestigious and secretive task. He will become The Receiver of Memory, the only member of his community with knowledge of past events, experiences and emotions outside their highly organised orbit, training under his predecessor, The Giver (Jeff Bridges, R.I.P.D.).

If the premise of The Giver sounds familiar, and the details too, that’s because similar elements have proliferated in all manner of youth-oriented efforts of late. In a time in which film adaptations of young adult literature have come of age in quantity rather than quality, particularly those with a dystopian setting and survivalist themes, commonality rather than diversity seems to be their driving force. Here, factionalisation, fighting against societal constraints and romantic riffs of the likes of Divergent and The Hunger Games arise once more. The Giver’s source material, Lois Lowry’s 1993 novel of the same name, actually pre-dates both series in print, giving rise to rather than aping them; however in being the last to make the leap to the screen, it can’t help but suffer from the comparison.

Such homogeneity across the spate of related output certainly raises a smile, given that breaking free from conventionality is the ambit of each narrative. At the heart of the film, as in the book, is the notion of breaking free from conformity; Jonas is raised to adhere and assimilate, but when he is awakened to the true extent of the world – the pain and suffering, as well as the love and happiness – he can no longer submit to blind compliance. A wealth of other efforts have followed the same path, with the original content cobbling together components of Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Logan’s Run and 1984, and the screen translation recalling The Matrix and Pleasantville. In a triumph of the superficial over the thoughtful, selling the message of being different can only be done in the same manner, so it appears.

In execution under filmmaker Phillip Noyce’s (Salt) guidance, The Giver thus becomes a derivative but competent amalgam of the expected. The predictability that results in the adapted screenplay by first-timer Michael Mitnick and Curb Your Enthusiasm director Robert B. Weide robs the feature of any chance of surprise and misguidedly attempts to ramp up the action; however within its cognisant confines, some aspects succeed even when saddled with such rampant uniformity. The film’s primary stylistic gimmick, a palette initially bleached of colour to mimic the lack of texture in the daily lives depicted, proves both aesthetically striking and an efficient mechanism for enlivening the underlying themes. The handling of the flashes of the past that set Jonas on his new journey evoke the requisite sensory impact, in a rush of sound, vision, sentiment and vitality.

Thwaites, continuing an ascension to stardom that has filtered through TV’s Slide and Home and Away and Australian cricketing comedy Save Your Legs, makes an agreeable hero, effectively conveying blissful ignorance, uncertain comprehension and concerted rebellion in turn. Much of the rest of the cast – including Meryl Streep (August: Osage County) as the ruthless ruler, Katie Holmes (Jack and Jill) and Alexander Skarsgård (The East) as Jonas’ accommodating parents and Odeya Rush (We Are What We Are) as a love interest – aren’t afforded the same scope, their bit parts and corresponding performances merely servicing the story. That Bridges monopolises attention over his raft of co-stars stems from the complexity of his character as the film’s strongest and most interesting element, and the actor’s own twenty-year quest to bring the story to the cinema. If his efforts had come to fruition earlier, The Giver may have lead the way in its genre on screen as it did on the page; instead, it offers an unremarkable exercise in traversing now-standard territory.