The Giver

    So maybe it wasn't the worst movie. Maybe if I had never read and loved the book, and went into this movie totally ignorant of it, then I could've found something to like. And reviewing an adaption is a tricky thing, having to look at it as both an adaption of its original source and a movie in itself. Of course, I've seen a lot of movies in my life that are adaptions of books, plays, etc. where I don't know much about the source material. So I could, and have in the past, come out of these movies and loved them while fans of the source might be justifiably angry if they're nothing like the original. And I can imagine someone might've enjoyed this movie if the book The Giver had not been an integral part of their childhood or they had never realized the poetic, simple yet stylistic genius of the book.
     As an adaption, it straight out sucks. It's pointless analyzing everything wrong about it in that way, because if I did you'd be reading this review for the next week. It essentially fails at all points plot wise, character wise, even moral wise it fails pretty hard by slapping on this contrived pat hollywood ending that (surprise of all surprises) doesn't happen in the book or resemble what the book was going for. It makes the whole issue that destroyed mankind seem like an easy fix. Well the ending from the book kind of happens in the movie, but they stuff a lot more in just to get a perfect happy Hollywood ending for everybody cause that's what we all want, isn't it?
    It fails as an adaption mainly because The Giver isn't the type of book that translates well to film in the first place. I know it's hard to wrap our heads around the idea of a popular Young Adult novel not being a good fit for a movie nowadays, but it's really not. The book is a very simple story with simple characters and simple relationships that doesn't dive much into intricate world building or constant action packed conflict either. It soars primarily on its poetic writing style and how that helps us dive into the psychology of the main character and his personal journey. What I'm saying is it's basically nothing like The Hunger Games.
    A novel writing style (which is a lot different than a scriptwriting style, trust me on that) doesn't translate to film, it physically can't unless someone narrates everything that happens. So once you take that away, your left with a very slow moving, non-actionous, non-climactic, small story that doesn't work as a big action packed sci-fi Hollywood film.
    Really the book The Giver is just an unfortunate victim of circumstance, not just in the fact that the story's a bit dated now because we've seen the "rebel against the dystopian future story" for teenagers a lot in the last 7 years. The Giver is also unfortunate because it's still popular today...yes that's unfortunate for the book, hear me out.
    The Giver came out in the early 90s, over 20 years before The Hunger Games came about and basically changed everything. It wasn't written in that fad of "dystopia" novels that has recently become popular, which is why its writing style and its story are nothing like those books, it's not written to easily fit the Hollywood movie cookie cutter like those books are. However, it's still popular among that same crowd that likes those books. I read The Giver and loved it, a lot of people I know have read it and loved it, and those same people  have liked or loved Hunger Games, Divergent, Maze Runner, Matched, Uglies, and more. I'm sure that's the same all across the nation. So it just makes sense to big Hollywood producers to make a movie out of this critically acclaimed book that is popular with a market they've already cornered with other successful films, and a book that seems to be, on the very very surface, like those other successful films.
    So you now know why The Giver can't work and doesn't work as a film, you know why it happened anyway, but what about the actual end product? For in the end, an adaption is not just an adaption, as I stated before it's a film for all, even those that don't know the source material. So what if we disconnect everything wrong about The Giver as an adaption, which is everything, and look at it as a film on it's own? (That is, even though this movie is priding itself on being an adaption and trying to get fans of the book to pay money to see it, which is its main goal as an adaption of a popular, acclaimed work.) Well, there's nothing truly awful I can say about it, but there's nothing great either. They had a simple, small, non-epic story that is very much against the current Hollywood teen fad and were forced to make it the opposite to draw in more crowds. Because of that, they get the worst of both. There are dimensional characters and relationships, sure, but nothing that feels like something we haven't seen before. The acting isn't bad, but nobody's amazing either. There is a futuristic sci-fi setting, but it looks the same as countless other movies. There are a few scenes and shots that show some vision, style, and memorability, but are never pushed as far as they could have been. The whole world of The Giver comes across as any other dystopia we've seen, except without the diversity via teens fighting to the death, people being forced in factions, etc. It moves at a constantly frenetic pace, so I can't say it was the most boring movie, but it still felt like other dystopia movies I've seen, without anything to set it apart.
    The Giver is a square block, and Hollywood is the impatient toddler trying to force it through the circle shaped hole. Maybe if that toddler got a knife and worked really hard to whittle the square into a circle, there'd be a good fit. As is though, it's a disgusting wreck of an adaption that has no business associating itself with the book it's "based on", and as a movie in itself it's fairly dull and shallow with no original substance of its own. And with the next big YA dystopia book adaption being The Maze Runner, well at least with that we know Hollywood is putting the circle shaped block through the circle shaped hole.