The Giver - quick review (1 Viewer)

Based on a young adult novel, "The Giver" is the story of a world with boundaries and an adherement to "sameness", basically evening out the human experience to mitigate man's capacity for love and hatred. Every generation it seems there is one person born who can handle the memories of human life before the "sameness" became the way of life of human civilization in this dystopian future, all the while the propagaters of this experience think they are working towards a utopian existence for human kind.

Jonas is that person who is deemed worthy to receive these memories, and they come from the current receiver of memories, now in "The Giver" role (Jeff Bridges). Living in this world is haunting, as the evening out of all things creates a population unable to see in color, they don't have time for the arts, music, feelings with emotional content. Everything is literal, nuance has been squelched from human interaction. Soon, after spending time with the Giver, Jonas sees in colors, he learns of happiness, love, and later, all of the painful sides of human existence.

All in all, a very didactic tale, very on-the-nose. With Phillip Noyce at the directing helm, the film looks good, it moves well, but the plot and conclusion are weak, very little drama past Jonas having a hard time dealing with mankind's darkest days in the past. So, a decent setup, but not so good of a dismount.

I give it 2.5 stars or a grade of C+.