Waiting for Intermission: Review of "The Giver"


We all know how it feels when the film industry takes one of our favorite books from childhood and tries to turn it into a profit. Films can never compete with the imaginations we, as children, create for the impossible. With that being said, the film, “The Giver” managed to give us as much imagination as it possibly could, had we been born in a world of dystopia. From the mind of Lois Lowry, we are able to imagine a community where there is no color, no emotion, no memory, and as a result, no pain.

The Community, created after “The War”, controls everything, even the climate and time by using the latest technology to signify night and day. Drones fly high in the sky and record every detail in the Community.
Since birth, every individual is watched by order of the Council. People are divided and assigned everything based on calculations taken from the Community’s records. Everything is artificial, right down to the trees surrounding them.

Each person must apologize before they speak while the other must acknowledge their apology. “Precision of language” is taught in each year of school to prevent emotional confusion. Where there is no love, there is no hate. Where there is no happiness, there is no despair. To be content means that the Community will run strong.

Unfortunately for our main character, Jonas, he was born to be dangerously curious about everything. Graduation day arrives and all groups of the Community advance to the next section.

Throughout his training, Jonas learns pain, sadness, war, and self-destruction. However, in return for all these fateful truths of the “real” world, Jonas discovers beauty, joy, thrill, and love.

Confronted with these harsh realities, Jonas quickly uncovers that the Community is fake. He is faced with difficult choices about his own life and the lives of the Community, affecting the calculations of his future.

While watching the film, I couldn’t help but imagine how life would be if our own form of a Community were to form. The Community was designed to disregard hate, misery, greed, and all other terrible emotions.

To be given the chance to forget every horrible memory you and the entire world have ever had seemed perfect. However all the colors in the world would disappear.

We would forget love, joy, and happiness. No one would have individuality; everyone would be exactly the same. We would never be able to dream. In order for the world to forget how to hate, we would also forget how to hope.

The film showed a world where people accepted what life was, but they forgot how to live. Jonas began to see colors throughout the film in very subtle changes, from the color of an apple to his friend’s hair.

However, his moment of revelation didn’t happen until The Giver shared a memory of a sunrise in full color. In that moment, it teaches us that life shouldn’t be lived by avoiding any pain we might experience, but how courage can shape our world into something wondrous.

Rating List: 3.5 out of 5 stars