I shall start this review with the staple comment. I loved the book. This movie is awful. And I don't mean "they changed a couple of things and now I feel it is true to the original". I mean, they changed a lot, including the subtext, it has internal inconsistencies, and it is no longer the same story. I couldn't even stay to finish the movie, and below I will state where I departed. For this reason, I give it the score as low as possible.
Please don't continue reading if you do not wish to be exposed to the spoilers below.
To start things off, what is the first colour that Jonas sees in the book? Red, he sees a red apple. A little bit into the story, after they have described the setting of the community to help people understand what the world is like. A description they have skipped over in the movie, they just show funny shaped houses, funny shaped bikes and a futuristic community. Weird. And Jonas "always knew he was different" since he has been seeing green tree leaves... Well, that is a departure from the original. Not ruinous, until he then sees Fiona's hair and gets all moon-eyed at her. The impending love story crushes my hopes. Then, they skip RIGHT to the graduation ceremony and kind of blur over the sheer doldrums of the event, with a witty joke told by the Chief Elder who LIES to them, although she immediately comes clean. So lies aren't allowed except with humorous exceptions... Oh, and Asher the best friend is now a drone pilot, so that will explain how he and Jonas will fight for the girl, even though Asher has no feelings, so the jealousy he keeps showing is... well, impossible, but definitely present. The Giver starts sharing with Jonas (thankfully, the sled is the first memory) they choose to omit the poignant fact that the giving removes the memories from the Giver, so only the new Keeper has them. Then, as Jonas gets more memories, he tries to share them with the girl he is falling in love with... wait, that didn't happen and if it had, as a drone of the society, she would have turned him in. He also shares things with his sister and Gabe sleeps in her room because nobody realizes Jonas can calm him. The Chief Elder sees some of these interactions and becomes paranoid that Jonas is also reacting to the sharing of memories, just like Rosemary (who is now the daughter of the Chief Elder and the Giver). OK, I can go on and on, but I will skip ahead to where I had to leave the theatre. The Chief Elder sends her military police force after Jonas, then after the Keeper, whom they zap with their batons, something that shouldn't be acceptable in their anti- violence and war society and here is about where I left, as the Chief Elder directs Asher to fly a drone after Jonas to "lose" him, which seems an odd colloquialism for "gone elsewhere" that the story has used to that point.
So all in all, the society eschews war, but not the chief elder (somehow), feelings abound even on the feeling dampening drugs the society takes, and people are fine with violence from the military police. Not the story of struggle against a world so absorbed in being the same that feeling and being different are something to hide until one can escape to freedom outside the community. It is now a horrible love story, a horrible love triangle, and a story of a mother who hates the father of the child she lost.
What a garbage rendition. They should have let any of the other films with these plots continue to tell them instead of corrupting this story to the point of unrecognizability.
Please don't continue reading if you do not wish to be exposed to the spoilers below.
To start things off, what is the first colour that Jonas sees in the book? Red, he sees a red apple. A little bit into the story, after they have described the setting of the community to help people understand what the world is like. A description they have skipped over in the movie, they just show funny shaped houses, funny shaped bikes and a futuristic community. Weird. And Jonas "always knew he was different" since he has been seeing green tree leaves... Well, that is a departure from the original. Not ruinous, until he then sees Fiona's hair and gets all moon-eyed at her. The impending love story crushes my hopes. Then, they skip RIGHT to the graduation ceremony and kind of blur over the sheer doldrums of the event, with a witty joke told by the Chief Elder who LIES to them, although she immediately comes clean. So lies aren't allowed except with humorous exceptions... Oh, and Asher the best friend is now a drone pilot, so that will explain how he and Jonas will fight for the girl, even though Asher has no feelings, so the jealousy he keeps showing is... well, impossible, but definitely present. The Giver starts sharing with Jonas (thankfully, the sled is the first memory) they choose to omit the poignant fact that the giving removes the memories from the Giver, so only the new Keeper has them. Then, as Jonas gets more memories, he tries to share them with the girl he is falling in love with... wait, that didn't happen and if it had, as a drone of the society, she would have turned him in. He also shares things with his sister and Gabe sleeps in her room because nobody realizes Jonas can calm him. The Chief Elder sees some of these interactions and becomes paranoid that Jonas is also reacting to the sharing of memories, just like Rosemary (who is now the daughter of the Chief Elder and the Giver). OK, I can go on and on, but I will skip ahead to where I had to leave the theatre. The Chief Elder sends her military police force after Jonas, then after the Keeper, whom they zap with their batons, something that shouldn't be acceptable in their anti- violence and war society and here is about where I left, as the Chief Elder directs Asher to fly a drone after Jonas to "lose" him, which seems an odd colloquialism for "gone elsewhere" that the story has used to that point.
So all in all, the society eschews war, but not the chief elder (somehow), feelings abound even on the feeling dampening drugs the society takes, and people are fine with violence from the military police. Not the story of struggle against a world so absorbed in being the same that feeling and being different are something to hide until one can escape to freedom outside the community. It is now a horrible love story, a horrible love triangle, and a story of a mother who hates the father of the child she lost.
What a garbage rendition. They should have let any of the other films with these plots continue to tell them instead of corrupting this story to the point of unrecognizability.