The Giver film, based on the popular young adult novel published in 1993, is a healthy mix of Brave New World, Foundation, Fahrenheit 451, Logan’s Run, 1984 and several other sci-fi treatises. But in addition to these classic works, the film can’t escape some of the Young Adult film tropes we’ve been inundated with of late, right down to the love triangles and power of destiny. As such, many of the plot mechanics, as opposed to headier social science themes, feel familiar, and this isn’t a good thing.  Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) lives in a Garden of Epcot, a perfect classless society in a future with no war, no hunger and where it hardly every rains. Everyone’s crisp white clothing and polite, sunny demeanour comes, of course, at a cost unknown to them. The citizens of this utopia are actually being drugged, constantly observed and the glorious culture only works, it’s discovered, due to a complex system of cruel eugenics and euthanasia. The Giver’s kick, however, is that the Community’s elders (led by Meryl Streep, who, unfortunately, gets little screen time, and what she does is via future-Skype) aren’t even sure themselves just how they are oppressing the citizenry. The powerful know they are pulling strings in an abstract sense, but are still wilfully (and blissfully) ignorant of specifics. You see, at some point after a devastating war, this society was built in such a way that knowledge of history would be verboten. All that exists is equanimity and sameness.  But someone along the way recognised that running things, even a controlled society, can be difficult. We need the wisdom of history in order to learn from our past. Thus one chosen individual is the Receiver of Memory, a living, breathing Wikipedia, the only person in town who knows about snow or laughing puppies or piano concertos. Or kissing. The flip side is, he’ll be the one who knows about death, violence and loss.  Jeff Bridges, bearded and working some inscrutable funny accent, is the current Receiver, but Jonas is the next Chosen One. The bulk of the movie dives in to explore the corners of this slightly familiar (Logan’s Run’s “Carousel” is just called “Elsewhere”) but still fascinating set-up. One can easily see why this is such a popular book, especially with teens roiling with angst and hoping to lash out at society. Young Jonas broods at home and around his former classmates and actually wouldn’t be wrong if he shouted “none of you understand me!” But he’s a good kid and he soon realises that his destiny lies in tearing the system down.  Phillip Noyce, whose better films include Dead Calm, Rabbit-Proof Fence and Salt, exploits a nice gimmick rooted in the story’s mythos. Those fully entrenched in the community (let’s call it Giverdale) see everything in black and white, but as sensei Bridges starts mind-melding with Jonas, colour starts to work its way into the frame. Again, this is a trick we’ve seen before (Pleasantville, Zentropa – aka Europa) but if you buy The Giver’s subtext that all of human existence is the repetition and reinterpretation of the same story, these constant feelings of thematic deja vu help it sell the premise.  The Giver is a mid-budget film but it still looks great. There’s still no finer film detailing a futureworld suburbia than Woody Allen’s Sleeper, but the well-lit and nicely maintained parks of The Giver make a good case for a lifestyle of historical ignorance and curated vocabulary. There’s also the recurring three-point visual motif, which extends, naturally, to best bud Asher (Cameron Monaghan) and gal pal Fiona (Odeya Rush). Indeed, Jonas and Fiona meet for secret whispers inside a bit of landscaping that slightly resembles a woman’s pubic triangle, the penetration point being a gush of water that accentuates everyone’s form-fitting clothing.  These pleasures aside, there’s the problem of the script. Some of the dialogue is atrocious. Many times exposition or bright ideas are just dumped on the screen like a harried mother leaving her kids at summer camp. There are some tweaks to the ending not found in the book that really don’t make a whole lot of sense, but work as big movie moments of heightened tension and visual effects. By the end of the movie few won’t be rolling their eyes or checking their watch, but there’s enough that’s fundamentally good in the meat of film not to wholly reject what The Giver is giving us.
Phillip Noyce’s futureworld looks great and despite a dodgy script and some familiar tropes it gets the essentials right, writes Jordan Hoffman