by: JOELLE THERESA V. NGO
Have you ever thought of living in a world without emotions, feelings, and all the other things that compose our human identity and make us who we really are as humans?
The Giver shows us just that- and all the horrors that come with it. It gives us an idea of what a world neglected of emotions is like through the haunting story of a special young boy named Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal but colorless world of conformity and contentment. Not until he was given the life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to discover the dark and complex secrets behind his mysterious and beguiling community.
Have you ever thought of living in a world without emotions, feelings, and all the other things that compose our human identity and make us who we really are as humans?
The Giver shows us just that- and all the horrors that come with it. It gives us an idea of what a world neglected of emotions is like through the haunting story of a special young boy named Jonas, who lives in a seemingly ideal but colorless world of conformity and contentment. Not until he was given the life assignment as the Receiver of Memory does he begin to discover the dark and complex secrets behind his mysterious and beguiling community.
With this new found power of knowledge, he realizes that the stakes are higher than imagined – a matter of life and death for himself and those he loves most. At extreme odds, Jonas knows that he must escape their world to protect them all – a challenge that no one has ever succeeded at before.
The film is based on Lois Dowry’s beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner of the 1994 Newbury Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
The film started off pretty well. There is a sad idealism to the emotional poverty of this sci-fi world, known as the Community, an antiseptic land where people are mildly happy, mildly kind, and mildly standoffish. In this dystopian society, all the good stuff that make life worth living is gone, but so too the bad stuff. The Giver is a powerful story that will make you appreciate the concept of emotions. It is inspirational in a way because it reminds us that the good and bad things come hand in hand, and that bad things are inevitable in life; but the beautiful things in life are always there to make us realize that in the end, it is all worth it.
However, many critics and readers of the novel say that The Giver did not remain faithful to the book. The film appeared nice and appealing to young adults since The Giver somehow resembled a concept quite similar to Divergent and The Hunger Games (less gore and violence though), but the Huffington Post has a less glowing opinion about it. “In a way the work of Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth doesn't, ‘The Giver’ builds a world that emphasizes introspection instead of adrenaline to document a utopia gone wrong.” It started off pretty well but it got lost in the end as it tried to build the climax of the film, resulting to its totally ambiguous ending.
The film has a captivating cinematography through its mixture of black-and-white color and its sudden flashes of life’s most celebratory moments. It offered more vivacity to the momentum of the film, living you breathless. The script was a bit pretentious but necessarily so, and the dialogue is so poetic that you will be drawn to the fantasy instead of its theatrical nature. Veteran actors such as Jeff Bidges and Merlyl Streep offered an effortless “sage vibe” needed for their roles, which made them the perfect actors to portray it.
Like most books made into movies, it is inevitable that critics and some avid readers of the novel will be disagreeing with it; nevertheless, The Giver is quite a powerful film that makes you embrace life and its memories, whether good or bad. Because in the end, it’s what make us humans, and it is what ultimately make us who we are.
The film is based on Lois Dowry’s beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner of the 1994 Newbury Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide.
The film started off pretty well. There is a sad idealism to the emotional poverty of this sci-fi world, known as the Community, an antiseptic land where people are mildly happy, mildly kind, and mildly standoffish. In this dystopian society, all the good stuff that make life worth living is gone, but so too the bad stuff. The Giver is a powerful story that will make you appreciate the concept of emotions. It is inspirational in a way because it reminds us that the good and bad things come hand in hand, and that bad things are inevitable in life; but the beautiful things in life are always there to make us realize that in the end, it is all worth it.
However, many critics and readers of the novel say that The Giver did not remain faithful to the book. The film appeared nice and appealing to young adults since The Giver somehow resembled a concept quite similar to Divergent and The Hunger Games (less gore and violence though), but the Huffington Post has a less glowing opinion about it. “In a way the work of Suzanne Collins and Veronica Roth doesn't, ‘The Giver’ builds a world that emphasizes introspection instead of adrenaline to document a utopia gone wrong.” It started off pretty well but it got lost in the end as it tried to build the climax of the film, resulting to its totally ambiguous ending.
The film has a captivating cinematography through its mixture of black-and-white color and its sudden flashes of life’s most celebratory moments. It offered more vivacity to the momentum of the film, living you breathless. The script was a bit pretentious but necessarily so, and the dialogue is so poetic that you will be drawn to the fantasy instead of its theatrical nature. Veteran actors such as Jeff Bidges and Merlyl Streep offered an effortless “sage vibe” needed for their roles, which made them the perfect actors to portray it.
Like most books made into movies, it is inevitable that critics and some avid readers of the novel will be disagreeing with it; nevertheless, The Giver is quite a powerful film that makes you embrace life and its memories, whether good or bad. Because in the end, it’s what make us humans, and it is what ultimately make us who we are.