The Giver is a 2014 American social science fiction film directed by Phillip Noyce and starring Jeff Bridges, Brenton Thwaites, Odeya Rush, Meryl Streep, Alexander Skarsgård, Katie Holmes, Cameron Monaghan, Emma Tremblay, Taylor Swift, Thabo Rametsi, and Alexander/James Jillings. The film is based on the 1993 novel The Giver by Lois Lowry.
The Giver premiered on August 11, 2014, and was released theatrically in the United States on August 15, 2014, and grossed $67 million on a $25 million budget. It received a People's Choice Award nomination for Favorite Dramatic Movie. It received generally mixed reviews from critics.
Video The Giver (film)
Plot
Following a calamity, referred to as The Ruin, society is reorganized into a series of communities, and all memories of the past are held by one person, the Receiver of Memory. Since the Receiver of Memory is the only individual in the community with the memories from earlier times, he must advise the Chief Elder and the other Elders on the decisions for the community. The Receiver of Memory and his assistant are also the only ones endowed with color vision (color blindness being a side effect of the daily, emotion-numbing drug injections imposed on everybody else).
Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is a 16-year-old boy who, like everyone else, is anxious about the career that he will be assigned. His best friends are Asher (Cameron Monaghan) and Fiona (Odeya Rush).
On the day of graduation, everyone is assigned a career. Jonas is briefly skipped. He is not assigned a career until the end of the ceremony, when he is told that he will become the next Receiver of Memory and will progressively receive memories from his predecessor, the Giver (Jeff Bridges). Upon assuming his role, Jonas learns of the past of the Giver and his child, Rosemary (Taylor Swift), who had preceded Jonas as Receiver of Memory. She was so distraught from the memories that she committed suicide, which the Community calls "release". Its nature is regarded as mysterious, but the audience learns that it is death by lethal injection. Jonas begins to teach his findings to Fiona and decides to share the idea of emotions. Fiona, who is unable to comprehend the idea of emotion, is unsure how she feels. Jonas then tells her to stop taking the injection and the next day, he kisses her, an antiquated action that is unknown to the community and Jonas gained through memory.
Jonas also shares his memories with the baby, Gabriel, who was brought home by his father, to their house. He develops a close relationship with him after discovering that he shares the same mark on his wrist Jonas does, the mark of a potential Receiver of Memory. Jonas decides that everyone should have the memories of the past and eventually, the Giver and Jonas decide that the only way to help the community is to go past the border of what they call "Elsewhere" and beyond the community. That would release the memories back into the community. Jonas sneaks out at curfew and decides to get Gabe at the Nurturing Center, who is to be "released" for his general weakness. Asher, his other longtime friend beside Fiona, tries to stop him before he leaves the neighborhood, but Jonas quickly punches him. Asher lies on the ground, stunned, and Jonas rides his bike to the Giver's dwelling. Jonas tells the Giver, and the Giver, reluctant to let Jonas leave first, lets him leave after giving him memories of courage. He rushes to the Nurturing Center. He tells Fiona of his plan and wants to take her with him, but she refuses and instead helps him retrieve Gabe. Before he leaves, she kisses him then aids in his escape.
Meanwhile, Jonas' mother (Katie Holmes) and Asher go to the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) to tell them Jonas is missing. Guards are sent to contain Jonas, who they say has become "dangerous," but Jonas gets one of their motorcycles and drives off the cliff near the Giver's dwelling into Elsewhere. Asher is assigned by the Chief Elder to use a drone to find Jonas and "lose" (kill) him, but when he finds Jonas stumbling through the desert, he instead captures Jonas with the drone. After Jonas implores Asher to think that if he ever cared for Jonas and would let him go, Asher sets him free by dropping him into a river. Jonas stumbles onto Elsewhere, and Fiona has been condemned to be "released" for helping him. Just as she is about to be "released" by Jonas' father (Alexander Skarsgård), the Giver steps in and stalls the Chief Elder with memories of his daughter, Rosemary, trying to call out the Chief Elder but is unsuccessful.
Eventually, Jonas finds a sled, like the one that he rode in a memory from the Giver, and makes his way beyond the border of Elsewhere, releasing memories and color vision back into the community, thus saving Fiona and Jonas' father who realizes what he's doing. Right then, Jonas' mother sheds a single tear as she finally understands the feeling of love. Jonas and Gabe return to the house of his memories, where people are singing Christmas carols, and the voiceover says that back in the community, he swears that he hears music or possibly just an echo.
Maps The Giver (film)
Cast
- Jeff Bridges as The Giver
- Brenton Thwaites as Jonas
- Odeya Rush as Fiona
- Alexander and James Jillings as Gabriel
- Katie Holmes as Jonas' mother
- Meryl Streep as The Chief Elder
- Alexander Skarsgård as Jonas' father
- Cameron Monaghan as Asher
- Taylor Swift as Rosemary
- Emma Tremblay as Lily
- Thabo Rametsi as Robbie
Production
Jeff Bridges initially wanted to film the movie in the mid-1990s, and a script was written by 1998. Various barriers marred the production of the film, including when Warner Bros. bought the rights in 2007. The rights then ended up at The Weinstein Company and Walden Media.
Bridges originally intended that his own father, Lloyd Bridges, would play the title character, The Giver, but he died in 1998.
Principal photography began on October 7, 2013 in Cape Town and Johannesburg. Meryl Streep had some of her scenes shot in England, where she also filmed Rob Marshall's Into the Woods, before doing additional filming two months later in Paarl, a town near Cape Town. The filming was completed on February 13, 2014 in Utah.
Music
The score for The Giver was composed by Marco Beltrami. The song "Ordinary Human" by OneRepublic was featured in the movie. The film also features Tori Kelly's "Silent". The soundtrack was released on August 5, 2014 by Interscope Records.
Release
The first official trailer for the film was released on March 19, 2014. On April 11, 2014, more footage from the film was revealed. A second trailer was released on June 4.
On July 11, 2014, it was announced that The Weinstein Company and Walden Media would be teaming up with Fathom Events to stream the red carpet premiere to more than 250 theaters in the US on August 11, four days before its official release. Ziegfeld Theatre hosted the film's premiere in New York City.
Reception
Box office
The Giver grossed $45.1 million in North America and $21.9 million overseas for a worldwide total of $67 million, against a production budget of $25 million.
The film earned $4.7 million on its opening day. In its opening weekend, the film grossed $12.3 million, finishing in 5th place at the box office.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 35% based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 5.3/10 (as of 12/2017). The site's critical consensus reads, "Phillip Noyce directs The Giver with visual grace, but the movie doesn't dig deep enough into the classic source material's thought-provoking ideas." On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 47 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews."
Richard Roeper gave the film a "C," stating that "the magic [of the novel] gets lost in translation" but that the film had its heart in the right place.
Accolades
See also
- List of films featuring drones
- Logan's Run (film)
- Aeon Flux (film)
- Eugenics
References
External links
- Official website
- The Giver on IMDb
- The Giver at Box Office Mojo
- The Giver at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Giver at Metacritic
Source of article : Wikipedia
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