Play the trailer below to get a faint idea as to how Lois Lowry’s novel The Giver was adapted for the screen.
The setting is a dystopian society, which, of course thinks of itself as utopian. The perfect “community.” Children are assigned to family “units” and everyone lives an illusion of peace and harmony because they’ve been anesthetized not to feel any strong emotions. All memory of human history was wiped out in order to protect them from pain and suffering. Everyone lives a sort of outwardly pleasant robotic existence. They practice “precision of language” and apologize to one another a lot. There’s no real personal choice. One’s life — just like the economy — is planned from on high.
And it all leads to blind cruelty.
In the story, one person designated as “The Giver” (played by Jeff Bridges) serves as a keeper of the memories. It is a covert position that was established in the event the elders of the society ever needed to consult on a question requiring that knowledge. (Meryl Streep plays the chief elder.) A boy named Jonas (played by Brenton Thwaites) has to try to make sense of it all.
If you’re going to the movies this weekend, I definitely recommend The Giver. Despite any flaws, it’s a rare and welcome message in these painfully politically correct times. To learn more, click on Jack Fowler’s review of The Giver in National Review: “Take Someone to The Giver.”
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