BEFORE: Meryl Streep carries over from "The Homesman". It's a bit of an odd year if I haven't seen Streep in two movies already - it's an easy link tonight but I don't think she'll make the year-end wrap-up with only two films. But hey, it looks like Taylor Swift is going to make the cut for the first time ever. Is Taylor Swift the new Meryl Streep?
THE PLOT: In a seemingly perfect community without war, pain, suffering, differences, or choices, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.
AFTER: It's far in the future (maybe? how far?) in a country that might have once been America (only, how can you tell?) and everyone lives in the ultimate gated communities, with the Chief Elder keeping an eye on things via hologram. This is a society where Meryl Streep has somehow become the equivalent of President, and of course I approve that sort of society, however there's a bit of a bait-and-switch here, we're told that this is a utopian future, however be prepared to maybe find out that it's anything but, and might even be a dystopian one.
Oh, sure, everything seems fine, at first, but everything's in black and white! There was some kind of event called "The Ruin", which reorganized society - it's unclear if this was a war or a famine or a pandemic, but somehow during The Ruin society lost its color. Sure, I figured this was just symbolic, and that color represented joy or the emotions that have become forbidden, but now that I read the plot summary on Wikipedia, it appears that this is meant to be taken literally, nobody in this society can see color? Huh? OK, I'll give you that we can maybe do away with war in the future, that would be great, and suffering, sure, get rid of suffering. But CHOICE? That sounds awful close to giving up freedom, but it appears that's gone the way of the dinosaur also, since nobody can leave their gated community, for safety's sake, apparently. Now, please, explain to me how eliminating war, suffering, and choice also made colors go away. I'm waiting...
You can see what I mean, right? This works on a symbolic level, if we don't have choices or emotions than our lives become drab and emotionless, and therefore SYMBOLIZED by black and white. To explain joy and emotions to someone who can't experience them would be similar to explaining color to someone who can't see colors, or music to a deaf person, or how something tastes to someone with no taste buds. It can't be done, or if it can, it would be extremely difficult. What's worse is that whatever took away all these other things took away all the stock footage - I mean, memories, or for whatever reason nobody remembers the way that things used to be in the past. Except one person, the Reciever of Memory.
Look, I get where they were going with this, but it just can't work. Even if everyone willingly forgot about history or was made to forget about what came before, we'd still have books, right? People could read about the way things were in the past and live vicariously through fictional characters or biographies of real people, right? Or maybe that's where things started, they banned books and nobody remembered the "Fahrenheit 451" system of preserving them, so with no books then MAYBE somebody had a shot at getting rid of memory, and then with no romance novels love went away, and without scary stories nobody was afraid any more and without MAD Magazine nobody laughed at anything any more. OK, lesson for the day, banning books is BAD, even if your school library has books about queer people that you don't want your kids to read, tough, deal with it because once you start banning books then we end up in a future where there is no love and also nobody can see color. Apparently.
Also, there is no unemployment, because when the 18-year olds graduate, they are assigned jobs like drone pilot or nurturer and then that's their gig until they retire. Umm, sure, I can see how the elders might be able to figure out who should do what based on their skills, only how can they possibly know that there will be a job opening for them? Ah, they've got that one sorted out, too, because when people reach a certain age and they retire, they are sent to go live "Elsewhere". Likewise, only a certain number of babies are allowed to be raised by families, and the babies who don't make the cut are also sent to go live "Elsewhere". And if you start to think that this "Elsewhere" is really a euphemism for something, well, you're on the right track. If you've seen "Logan's Run" you might figure out how this future society works. It's kind of like when your dog or cat goes to live on a farm upstate, only there's not really a farm.
Jonas is the last person from his class to be assigned a job, and his job is to become the new Receiver of Memory, which makes the old Receiver of Memory into the Giver of Memory. The new Giver is able to transmit memories of the past society into Jonas' brain, and so Jonas becomes the new only person who knows how the world really works. So he gets to learn about war and love and all the good things and bad things that no longer exists, also he gets to tell lies, which nobody else is allowed to do, and sure, this system sure seems like it's working just fine, no adjustment needed, hey, we made it this far, so why not just stay the course. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Only I guess it's pretty broke - nobody knows how to have fun any more, nobody apparently has sex, all the babies are made in a lab, and there are no movies or TV. Yeah, some utopia.
What's worse is that most people don't even realize there's a problem, Jonas' father kills babies in the lab because they're not perfect, and then there's the community's retirement plan, where the benefits aren't great. There are no Social Security checks in the future, either. Jonas, instead of becoming a millionaire and re-inventing television, chooses to grab his baby brother and drive off on a motorcycle, to make it to the towers that surround the community and hope that somehow this will restore stock footage to the community. Wait, I mean memories.
I don't know, this whole story is problematic at best. It feels like this was all meant to be some kind of metaphor for something, but I'm not sure for what. Is someone really saying that society can never eliminate war, not without losing everything else that makes us human, like free will? So, does this mean that it's pointless to even TRY to eliminate war? I can't believe that could possibly be the case. And if we got rid of hate, we'd lose love in the process? Again, I'm not really following that logic, it would be like saying you wouldn't know that winter is cold unless you also understood that summer is hot. But we're intelligent people (well, some of us...) and we can reason things out and say that these things are good and those things are bad, but somehow we can't just try to get rid of the bad things? Like the only way to cut down crime and murder would be to take away all of people's freedom and free will? Have you tried ALL of the other ways?
NITPICK POINT: How come in the future there are bicycles, but not, sleds, or even skateboards? Even if people forgot what those items are, what would there be that would prevent somebody from inventing them again? They seem like very simple concepts that people could reason out again, even if everyone was somehow made to forget about them. Same goes for dancing or singing.
That's all for this week, but my Thanksgiving-themed mini-chain starts on Sunday. And I just realized that my lead-in to Thanksgiving is titled "The Giver", somehow that ended up being very appropriate.
Also starring Jeff Bridges (last seen in "Fearless"), Brenton Thwaites (last seen in "Son of a Gun"), Alexander Skarsgard (last seen in "The Northman"), Katie Holmes (last seen in "Touched With Fire"), Odeya Rush (last seen in "Dumplin'"), Cameron Monaghan (last seen in "The Year of Spectacular Men"), Taylor Swift (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Emma Tremblay (last seen in "Wonder"), Alexander Jillings, James Jillings, Renate Stuurman, Thabo Rametsi.
RATING: 5 out of 10 daily injections
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