Jeff Bridges and author Lois Lowry unveil a new trailer for the long-awaited adaptation of The Giver.
The Giver was published in 1993, but the Newberry Award-winning book is only now coming to the screen, probably thanks to the rampant success of novels that came long after it like The Hunger Games and Divergent. Like John Carter, The Giver was there first -- the problem is whether audiences unfamiliar with the book will reject it as derivative of the very tales that it influenced in the first place.
Based on the presentation for the film in Hall H at Comic-Con on Thursday, the movie could be in for a rocky ride. The hall was far from full and it was one of those seemingly surreal moments when you could just walk right into the room and not wait for hours on a line. Nevertheless, the fans that were there were very interested in the book -- most of the audience questions during the Q&A segment of the panel were directed to the author of the novel, Lois Lowry.
Lowry was there along with star/producer Jeff Bridges, stars Brenton Thwaites and Odeya Rush and producer Nikki Silver to showcase the film, but the panel kicked off with a video message from director Philip Noyce, who is in New York putting the final post-production touches on the movie. He addressed The Giver's place in the young adult world head-on by saying, "Long before The Hunger Games and Divergent..." And then he introduced the lengthy trailer, which felt like it pretty much told most of the story in under 10 minutes.
The movie starts out in black and white, which is supposed to symbolize the monotonous, homogenous world of flat grays that it takes place in. The story's post-apocalyptic society has stamped out all emotions and individuality, while erasing everyone's memories of the past. Those memories are stored in the brain of one person, the Receiver, and a young man named Jonas (Thwaites) is picked as part of a ceremony by this society's leader (Meryl Streep) to become the new Receiver.
To do that, he must travel to the edge of their city and meet the old Receiver, now called the Giver (Bridges), who will pass those memories along to him. But the Giver has also decided it's time for this society to wake up and reclaim its freedom, and Jonas is going to be the match that lights that flame.
The footage is at least visually interesting, with color slowly seeping back into the world as Jonas awakens to his senses and emotions. Watching the way the story unfolds, however, I was shocked initially by how much of it was similar to Divergent (did that story's author read The Giver when she was a child?). That air of over-familiarity could be an obstacle for The Giverto overcome.
Back on the panel, Lowry and Bridges both spoke about the movie's long journey to the screen. Bridges recalled how he wanted to direct it years ago and cast his father, Lloyd Bridges, as the Giver, but by the time the movie was actually going to be made, he was old enough to play the role himself. Bridges has been involved for years in trying to get the picture made: "I thought this would have been easy to make, but that was a mistake."
Lowry discussed some of the book's themes and the fact that some schools had banned it from their reading curriculum, which she said she never understood. Changes from novel to film were also brought up, including making the kids older (Jonas and other characters are 12 in the book, but are older teens in the film) and a more definitive ending (the book's is somewhat ambiguous) -- which Lowry perhaps inadvertently gave away.
Silver discussed watching Bridges and Streep -- who had never worked together before -- do their scenes together: "We all stood there watching them work...and were just awed by them."
Hopefully some of that awe will find its way into the film, which opens on August 15.
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