Film Review: "The Giver" (2014).

"Search for truth. Find freedom" in The Giver. This dystopian science fiction film directed by Phillip Noyce, adapted by Michael Mitnick and Robert B. Weide, and based on the 1993 young adult novel of the same name by Lois Lowry. Jonas lives in a seemingly idyllic world of conformity and contentment. When he begins to spend time with The Giver, an old man who is the sole keeper of the community's memories, Jonas discovers the dangerous truths of his community's secret past. Armed with the power of knowledge, Jonas realizes that he must escape from their world to protect himself and those he loves - a challenge no one has ever completed successfully.

Since the mid 1990s, Jeff Bridges, who bought the film rights to the novel, had been trying to make the film with a script written by 1998, and intended to star his family. Bridges originally intended that his own father, Lloyd Bridges, would play the title character, The Giver, but he died in 1998. Various barriers marred the production of the film, including when Warner Bros. bought the rights in 2007. The rights then ended up at The Weinstein Company and Walden Media. By early October 2013, Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgård, Taylor Swift, Cameron Monaghan, and Emma Tremblay were cast in a new adaptation adapted by Mitnick and Weide, and with Noyce as director. At the same time, principal photography commenced, and wrapped in mid February 2014. Filming took place throughout South Africa and Utah.

The film stars Bridges, Thwaites, Rush, Streep, Holmes, Skarsgård, Swift, Monaghan, and Tremblay. Fundamentally, this is just further proof of Hollywood's untiring ability to reduce all science fiction to its most feeble stereotypes thanks to the well-intentioned but disappointing subpar performances.

Despite its grabber of a premise, The Giver flaunts poorly developed plot specifics; as such, it's terminally silly. Nevertheless, as a camp curio, it still has an odd but undeniable staying power. Where is Rod Serling's Twilight Zone when we need it most?  It's a good idea. But what the movie required to set it off and make it unusual is style and this, despite a few handsome sets, is sorely lacking In the direction, writing and most of the acting. Noyce has insisted in mixing action with spectacle, but misses the mark. The "message" of the film doesn't go beyond its distinguished predecessors. It's a good story with a well-defined sense of jeopardy, and appropriate performances by Bridges, Streep, Thwaites and Rush, but my most major problem is that too much is unexplained. A hit-and-miss futuristic film about a world in which everybody lives in a seemingly idyllic world of conformity and contentment. A cautionary tale of a futuristic society bent on destroying all complex ideas and knowledge. I found myself reflecting that sf writers can get away with a lot on the printed page that moviemakers just can't. Maybe its ambitions outpace its performance, but at least it tries.

Simon says The Giver receives: