{"id":13103,"date":"2014-08-15T12:08:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-15T18:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flovalleynews.com\/?p=13103"},"modified":"2014-08-15T12:08:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-15T18:08:21","slug":"movie-review-jeff-bridges-is-title-role-of-the-giver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flovalleynews.com\/?p=13103","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Jeff Bridges is title role of The Giver"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>The Giver<\/em><\/strong><strong>: Taken Away<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>by Sandra Olmsted \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After nearly twenty years, director and star Jeff Bridges has finally succeeded in his struggle to get a film adaptation of Lois Lowry\u2019s <em>The Giver<\/em> to the big screen. Jeff Bridges optioned the film in 1995, one year after Lois Lowry&#8217;s novel won the Newbery Medal, and he originally intended to cast his father, Lloyd Bridges (1913\u20131998), in the title role of the Giver. Now Bridges has taken the role of the shamanic sage for himself. The Giver keeps the memories of mankind\u2019s violence, hate, joy, and love so that the community can live happily in a peaceful, drugged harmony without the problems created by passion, jealousy, etc. When the Giver must train a new Receiver of Memories, Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), they begins under a cloud of a passed failure in the training of another Receiver, Rosemary (Taylor Swift), ten years earlier. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <em>The Giver<\/em> opens with eighteen-year-old best friends, Jonas, Fiona (Odeya Rush.) and Asher (Cameron Monaghan) heading to the last day of \u201chigh school\u201d and wondering what careers that they will be assigned at an upcoming ceremony marking the end of their childhood. While Fiona graduates to Nurturer, like Jonas\u2019 father (Alexander Skarsgard), Asher, the class clown, matriculates to Drone Pilot because he needs discipline. Assigned to be the Receiver of Memories, the most important job in the community, Jonas quickly learns he has permission to ask questions, even rude ones, and to lie, which is forbidden the rest of the citizens, and he never has to apologize, which the citizens do constantly. Meanwhile, the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) keeps a watchful eye on The Giver and on Jonas as he progresses and breaks a few minor rules. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Jonas\u2019 mother (Katie Holmes), a rule-obsessed judge, and little sister Lilly (Emma Tremblay) complete Jonas\u2019 family unit until dad brings home Gabe, a baby whose lack of development may mean he will be released to Elsewhere. Jonas quickly becomes attached to Gabe and begins showing him the joyful and beautiful images the Giver initially shares with Jonas in order to quell Gabe\u2019s colic. Lilly occasionally overhears what Jonas says to Gabe, but can\u2019t share the memories the way the Giver, Jonas, or Gabe can. When Jonas learns that release and being sent Elsewhere doesn\u2019t mean going to live in a neighboring community, he decides to take action and try to breech the boundary of memory. The Giver encourages and helps Jonas in his quest because, if Jonas can get passed the boundary, the citizens will be released from their drugged complacency. Their black-and-white world and their emotionally flat lives will be changed forever, but only if Fiona and Asher also assist Jonas. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While Bridges\u2019 <em>The Giver<\/em> being shot in black and white harkens back to a similar theme in the film <em>Pleasantville<\/em> (1998) in look and theme, Lowry\u2019s <em>The Giver<\/em> also draws on other work with philosophical underpinnings. Although certainly not a new idea even though it was published some six years before <em>The Matrix<\/em> was made, <em>The Giver<\/em> draws from the work of Ursula K. Le Guin\u2019s 1973 &#8220;The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas,&#8221; Aldous Huxley\u2019s <em>Brave New World<\/em>, and George Orwell\u2019s <em>1984<\/em>. Similar to Lowry\u2019s novel where one person suffers the horrors of remembering the love and pain of being human, Le Guin\u2019s short story focuses on one child suffering all the horrors of poverty so that the \u201cutopian\u201d society will have prosperity. The rigid control of birth and nurturing that Huxley explored echoes in the way children are treated in Lowry\u2019s story, and Lowry\u2019s <em>The Giver<\/em> also shares Orwell\u2019s depiction of totalitarian mind control to achieve \u201cpeaceful utopia\u201d and of one man challenging that control. Philosophical fiction challenges filmmakers to capture not only the message of the work but also the thrill of the struggle against dystopian control. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 While the film <em>The Giver<\/em> has moments of suspense and excitement, it can\u2019t really be classified as a thriller, perhaps because it gets bogged down in the love story between Jonas and Fiona. A capitulation to the desire to draw the teen audience, the teen love story, however, doesn\u2019t overwhelm the story or resort to trite teen angst. While not a thrill a minute, this loose adaptation of <em>The Giver<\/em> may encourage new readers of Lowry\u2019s fiction but may displease existing fans of the book because of the many change. Release by The Weinstein Company, <em>The Giver<\/em> is rated PG-13 for a mature thematic image and some sci-fi action\/violence and runs 94 minutes. <em>The Giver<\/em> is in theaters now.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Giver: Taken Away by Sandra Olmsted \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After nearly twenty years, director and star Jeff Bridges has finally succeeded in his struggle to get a film adaptation of Lois Lowry\u2019s The Giver to the big screen. Jeff Bridges optioned the film in 1995, one year after Lois Lowry&#8217;s novel won the Newbery Medal, and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie-reviews","entry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Movie Review: Jeff Bridges is title role of The Giver - flovalleynews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/flovalleynews.com\/?p=13103\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Movie Review: Jeff Bridges is title role of The Giver - flovalleynews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Giver: Taken Away by Sandra Olmsted \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After nearly twenty years, director and star Jeff Bridges has finally succeeded in his struggle to get a film adaptation of Lois Lowry\u2019s The Giver to the big screen. 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