This film, based on Lois Lowry's book, tells the story of a perfect world. Everyone here is happy. When Jonas is 18 years old, he's chosen to be the community's Receiver of Memories. He enters into training with an old man called 'the Giver' who would give Jonas memories of the "real" world that the rest of the community is hidden from. From the Giver, Jonas learns not only of love and family, but also of pain, war, and all the unhappy truths the world holds. He quickly realizes that his community is fake. Confronted with this reality, Jonas faces difficult choices about his own life and the futures of many people he's become close to.

saw 'the giver' last night at the fathom events screening. It was my favorite book growing up when i read it in school and maybe the reason I wasn't horribly disappointed was because it didn't even look great from the previews. nonetheless, i watched the movie. having recently read the book in preparation for the movie, the first thing that stood out to me was how quickly they jumped into the memories. It takes about ten chapters of the book to get there, and the movie gets there in less than ten minutes. it cuts out all the build up of the book and depending on how you like the speed of your films, this could be good or bad. this could pinpoint to why the movie didn't completely work. the script was rushed. it is definitely a case of 'when good actors happen to bad scripts'. because of the nature of the script (or because the nature of the movie, who knows?) the actors aren't given much to work with. this may not be their fault as the whole point of the story is a dystopian society where they don't allow you emotions, but to watch actors have straight faces for 94 minutes isn't exactly a pleasant experience. it leaves you feeling meh about the whole thing as i did. shame.