Overall I enjoyed this film. I would've loved to have seen some of the things brought up in the film explored in greater detail... such as the notion that without words for colour there is no colour... They could've done an entire film just on that idea alone... certainly when we covered this concept at university we spent hours upon hours exploring the power of language in defining our world.
Also the critique of community could've been explored much better. The result of the film is that we end up with more of a critique that borders communism rather than communitarianism and as such we get a THX-1138 or 1984 feel of this society. Although in all fairness the book emerged around the same time as Etzioni was redeveloping communitarianism into a means of government and Bauman's critique didn't come out until much later... as such, my guess is that the book was more of a promotion of neo-liberal individualism rather than a proper critique of communitarianism and as such it is understandable how the concept of community comes across as being more about communism and socialism. However, from talking to those who have read the book, there are enough changes in the film to have allowed the screen writer and director to bring the book up to date with more recent history by taking a communitarian critique and possibly weave in some similarities to things said and done during the Blair and Clinton administrations where government was defined in terms of community.
Meanwhile, the division of labour based on attributes seems like something taken straight from the Divergent... however, this is one of those cases whereby the films of the books have come out differently to the books - in other words, the book 'The Giver' came out a lot earlier than the book 'Divergent' and as such Divergent has probably borrowed from 'The Giver' rather than the other way around - although, I've not read either books and I am basing my review solely on the film.
The acting in the film was quite well done for such young actors. The photography and effects in the film were also well executed. There is also a big morality question over hanging all of this that mirrors that of 'After the Dark' (aka The Philosophers) (2013) concerning whether it is right for a few to die in order the rest to live harmoniously.
Although I would've loved to have seen a bit more development of the issues raised in the film (although it might be difficult to do that without making the film an epic in length), the main disappointment to the film was the ending. It made zero sense at all that the way in which to restore feeling was to break through a 'force field' on the edges of society. It would've made much more sense in the case of the film (I believe the book is slightly different) to have had Jonas do something to the injections that we are led to believe in the film were the cause of suppressed emotion (see THX-1138). Escaping to the edge of society seemed like a cheap ending to the film and if anything gave the film the impression that it had just ripped off THX-1138... and yet through the exploration of the power of language, the critique of community, and morality the film had the potential to be so much more than another THX-1138 rip-off.
The other major plot hole was the restoration of memory in people who had not experienced those memories. It made no sense whatsoever as to why someone who had not been born before the community was created to experience memories from before the community's creation, just because Jonas had passed through the edge of society. While I think tackling the injection would've been the way to have gone, had there been something at the edge of society that allowed Jonas to invade the consciousness of those within the community in the same way that the Giver shared his memories to Jonas via touch... then that may have solved the problems with the ending... it may be something along those lines in the book (I don't know) but if so, it wasn't very well explained in the film - and once again, it would've been better for Jonas to have discovered that he was able to project memory and feeling to others without the need of touching them as being the catalyst for the providing the community with a collective set of memories and emotions.
Overall... I enjoyed the film but felt it was let down by the ending.
Also the critique of community could've been explored much better. The result of the film is that we end up with more of a critique that borders communism rather than communitarianism and as such we get a THX-1138 or 1984 feel of this society. Although in all fairness the book emerged around the same time as Etzioni was redeveloping communitarianism into a means of government and Bauman's critique didn't come out until much later... as such, my guess is that the book was more of a promotion of neo-liberal individualism rather than a proper critique of communitarianism and as such it is understandable how the concept of community comes across as being more about communism and socialism. However, from talking to those who have read the book, there are enough changes in the film to have allowed the screen writer and director to bring the book up to date with more recent history by taking a communitarian critique and possibly weave in some similarities to things said and done during the Blair and Clinton administrations where government was defined in terms of community.
Meanwhile, the division of labour based on attributes seems like something taken straight from the Divergent... however, this is one of those cases whereby the films of the books have come out differently to the books - in other words, the book 'The Giver' came out a lot earlier than the book 'Divergent' and as such Divergent has probably borrowed from 'The Giver' rather than the other way around - although, I've not read either books and I am basing my review solely on the film.
The acting in the film was quite well done for such young actors. The photography and effects in the film were also well executed. There is also a big morality question over hanging all of this that mirrors that of 'After the Dark' (aka The Philosophers) (2013) concerning whether it is right for a few to die in order the rest to live harmoniously.
Although I would've loved to have seen a bit more development of the issues raised in the film (although it might be difficult to do that without making the film an epic in length), the main disappointment to the film was the ending. It made zero sense at all that the way in which to restore feeling was to break through a 'force field' on the edges of society. It would've made much more sense in the case of the film (I believe the book is slightly different) to have had Jonas do something to the injections that we are led to believe in the film were the cause of suppressed emotion (see THX-1138). Escaping to the edge of society seemed like a cheap ending to the film and if anything gave the film the impression that it had just ripped off THX-1138... and yet through the exploration of the power of language, the critique of community, and morality the film had the potential to be so much more than another THX-1138 rip-off.
The other major plot hole was the restoration of memory in people who had not experienced those memories. It made no sense whatsoever as to why someone who had not been born before the community was created to experience memories from before the community's creation, just because Jonas had passed through the edge of society. While I think tackling the injection would've been the way to have gone, had there been something at the edge of society that allowed Jonas to invade the consciousness of those within the community in the same way that the Giver shared his memories to Jonas via touch... then that may have solved the problems with the ending... it may be something along those lines in the book (I don't know) but if so, it wasn't very well explained in the film - and once again, it would've been better for Jonas to have discovered that he was able to project memory and feeling to others without the need of touching them as being the catalyst for the providing the community with a collective set of memories and emotions.
Overall... I enjoyed the film but felt it was let down by the ending.