Movie Discussion: The Giver

Lois Lowry’s influential dystopic novel, The Giver, a middle school favorite now for twenty years, finally makes it to the big screen. Critics haven’t given it the greatest reviews, overall. Did anyone here see it? Read it? Share your thoughts.

3 replies on “Movie Discussion: The Giver”

  1. While apparently I’m old enough to have never had the book in school, I thought the movie was brilliant. Relatively original (though similar to Logan’s Run in nature) and the cinematography was stellar. My only low points have to do with the end – as depicted, they never would have survived the journey. I will be reading the book soon to see how many liberties they took and how it compares.

  2. I haven’t watched the movie, but I gather the film diverges significantly. For starters, the main characters in the novel are kids/tweens, not teens/young adults. I imagine that changes quite a few things.

  3. I just finished reading the book, and I felt it didn’t have the impact the movie did, though the ending journey was more believable and didn’t have a certain contrived coincidence helping him. I do think the 18ish age of Jonas in the movie was more believable however. I’m ambivalent about the book’s handling of the memories – a transfer rather than a sharing, and the book’s explanation of what happened with Rosemary makes the “disaster” aspect of it more justified. Overall, I liked the movie better because I felt it hit harder, and the cinematography was stunning.

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