Critics Ratings:1.5 stars

Cast: Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgård.

Direction: Phillip Noyce,

Produced: Jeff Bridges, Neil Koenigsberg, Nikki Silver.

Genre: Drama Sci-Fi.

Duration: 100 min

Young adult, dystopia and the tenacious protagonist seem a winning combination with the studio bosses, even if things do not translate well from paper to film. In the midst of an overabundance of these concepts, The Giver is another twig in the fire that wallows in the flames but does not feed it.

Eighteen-year-old Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) is living in a world of The Elders, a purportedly utopian society where mankind is bred to serve a specific role. The title cards do not dwell on the specifics of how society became this way, but it is suffice to the viewers and those unfamiliar with the novel (including this reviewer) that these idealistic communities sprung from The Ruin of the past.

These communities run on the principles of truth and equality which are attained by fanatical adherence to the usage of precise words in speech (‘a stuffed toy’ is called a ‘comfort object’), obeying the rules, never lying, never violating the curfew and injecting daily a serum that denudes the citizens of their emotions. It is into this world that Jonas, with his friends Fiona (Odeya Rush) and Asher (Cameron Monaghan), must venture, their roles predestined by The Elders. “The Elders are never wrong,” says Jonas’ mother (Katie Holmes) staunchly.

The Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) ordains that Jonas’ multi-faceted skills make him fit to acquire knowledge from The Giver (Jeff Bridges), advisor to The Elders, who holds the key to the past.

Jonas and The Giver’s sessions open his mind to ideas and instances that the rest of the community is not privy to… like snow. Apparently the climate control of the community keeps the weather at bay. In this sanitised environment where everything is too perfect to be true, Jonas’ non-conformist tendencies can be potentially fatal.

Everything described above as plot points happen within half an hour of the brief running time. The rest of the film is merely a reiteration of the same scenario. It is conceptually reminiscent of Divergent and Equilibrium. For a true sci-fi aficionado, The Giver can be a test of patience. Unlike the aforementioned films, this one does not have an interesting enough leading man (blame the script, not the actor). Little can be said of a film where even Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges cannot salvage the proceedings.

Plot loopholes abound. In a world of sweeping surveillance, the main characters get away with a lot of mischief before being discovered. The exact functioning of the society, from the genetically-modified babies to the assigned families will not be understood by those who have not read the book. A crucial plot point that unfolds when the The Boundary of Memory is crossed remains unexplained. Elsewhere, a shadowy place of retirement is not elaborated upon.

The scenes between Jonas and The Giver are lifeless and ineffective, ironic in a film that is about emotions. The nature of their knowledge exchange is handled in too simplistic a manner. Instead of the history of humanity, there are meaningless montages that have little consequence in the narrative later.

Prepare for an awkward onscreen kiss between the leading pair. And a weird scene where you notice that The Giver sleeps in his dark day clothes with his shoes on. Also, for a society that emphasises on “sameness” and zero discrimination, the characters are predominantly white-skinned. These enervating bits aside, the film is a drab watch. Attribute it to the unfortunate timing of release which led to the commonality of the themes or even the dated fiction. The film’s source material – Lois Lowry’s book was released in 1993, an imaginative storyline then and a stale hotchpotch of ideas now.

“When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong. Every single time,” says the solemn Chief Elder. Nobody could agree more. Cut your losses and dive into some engaging dystopian fiction which includes but is not limited to The Hunger Games.