The Giver [film review]

★★★★

STORY 4/5

WRITING 3.5/5

ACTING 4/5

MUSIC 3.5/5

CINEMATOGRAPHY 3.5/5

     I'm still trying to figure out the primary critiques of this film as I'm writing this review. The Rottentomatoes summary states that it doesn't explore the themes of the book well enough. This is hardly a good critique, as critics aren't supposed to review a film's quality as an adaptation, but as a film. Now, a decent critique that could be made of The Giver is that the story has been done many times before. It's your classic dictatorial world civilization, featuring a rejection of emotion, art and any and all true quality of life (yet all the citizens are living happily in their blindness somehow). We've seen this, to some extent, in Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium, and to a much lesser extent, in City of Ember. But, pointers has to be given to this one, as it its basis was written before all of those except for Fahrenheit 451. 

     Even more pointers should be given to this film for the cinematography and Jeff Bridges' unsurprisingly tremendous performance. Though he is the greatest among an otherwise mediocre cast (with another exception of Meryl Streep), he performs brilliantly and livens up the film a great deal.

     Some could call this film manipulative, and I would agree. It is rather emotionally manipulative, but aren't most films that try to be emotional at all? It emphasizes what makes life life, what makes one do more exist. As I said before, yes it's been done before. Sure, it's ridiculous to think that this could ever happen, but it's simply an exaggeration of a realistic possibility, done to stress the idea.

     Yes, it's unrealistic in more than one way (both in terms of an unrealistic civilization and in the fact that it's factually unrealistic in that a motorcycle falls of a cliff and makes it down safely), yes it's old news. But it's still effective, and a decent adaptation (or so it seems, I myself have not read the book), and I consider it a good film.