Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘The Giver’

Written by Scott Edwards

Memories are something that nobody can ever take away from you, and why would you want them to, they help define who you are today. Every day, you make new memories and you learn from them and they help you to make the right decisions going forward. When you choose to ignore them and make the same wrong decisions on a daily basis, you may be left dumbfounded on why the results never change. But when you look back at them, they can provide many more lessons than you tend to give them credit for.

On the day of his graduation, Jonas is strangely concerned about what his future in the community will be. Since everyone has a designed future, he hopes that he will be given something that matches with his attitude, but that is not up to him, it is up to the Chief Elder. During graduation, the Chief Elder passes over his number and fails to give him a job for the future, but quickly remedies this when she comes back to make a special announcement. Jonas has been given the position of Receiver of Memories, but with this great role in the community comes great pain if he chooses to accept it. 

After The Ruin, everyone in society has been drugged and made to believe that their current way of living is the best for everyone. There's nothing special about anyone anymore, and Jonas has been given his new set of rules to live by that do not abide by the rules laid out for other people. Going to the end of the street to meet his new mentor, The Giver, Jonas is given the opportunity to see things that nobody else in this community has seen and he wants more. With memories being passed down to him by The Giver, Jonas wants to know why nobody else is privy to these events and believes it would be better for people to see them, rather than having them go through their daily grind with no emotion.

The Giver agrees with Jonas, but that is not the way it has been done for years. Urging Jonas to take the next step in his training, The Giver tells him to pass on his daily injections to see the world in a different light. While the injections should be full of vitamins to keep the people healthy, it is actually a batch of drugs that keeps the mind from wandering. After missing a couple of days of injections, Jonas starts to see colors and develops feelings outside of what he has ever felt in his life. Not being able to tell anyone about what he is learning in his training sessions, Jonas has to lie about what is being done, but that is not all. As his emotions start to develop, he finds a very strong one that has been oppressed, love. When trying to convey these feelings to his family, they believe he is starting to go crazy, but when his assigned little brother has been taken to be exiled from the community, Jonas knows exactly what needs to be done.

Not the type of movie that I usually watch, but it kept being recommended to me and I must admit that I really enjoyed it. As his eyes are opened to what is around him, Jonas has a lot of growing to do, but he does not want to do it alone. When trying to show his friends what he is learning, he is called out by the Chief Elder who does not want memories to be formed, much less remembered in her society. As their world has been cut off, it is easy to see why a perfect society may be essential, but not allowing people to come to their own decisions is just madness in my mind. I liked how The Giver and Jonas bonded and were able to come to terms with what was wrong in their community and when they decide to end the tyranny, it will open the eyes of everyone else that have never seen what life is really about.

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