Friday, December 19, 2014

The Giver


Occasionally I will get an offer to review a DVD, but rarely do I watch a movie and feel impressed to post a review of it. This is one of those rare times.

  I never read the book, but I have heard a lot about the movie, and several have hailed it as a great pro-life movie. I decided to watch it this evening and hoped it was worth the rental cost. And it was.

 The plot revolves around a young man named Jonas. He lives in a large community that is black and white, no color. There are no emotions, no animals, no love, no memories of life as we know it. No one is different, and everyone takes daily injections that hold emotions and memories at bay. At graduation, all graduates are given a job. Jonas is given the rare job of "receiver" of memories, and his trainer starts showing him memories of what life was like before their community was made and everyone basically became robots.

  I will try not to give away spoilers, but the more Jonas sees what it used to be like, the more he wants what used to be. He feels love for a baby and discovers what happens to babies who are not up to par and considered worthy to live in the community. They are "released". One of the great lines in the movie is stated by Jonas after he witnesses a baby being "released" and it has been explained to him that the people don't know what they are doing, that they are killing . "“They hadn't eliminated murder. They brought it home. They just called it by a different name.” 

  The movie had a slow start, but I quickly got into it and loved it. It is completely clean, no nudity or language, and comes as close to being a Christian movie as a movie could come and not be classified as such. And it is amazing for Hollywood to come up with a movie that is so pro-life, even if they didn't intend that to be the message. Completely family-friendly, and worth watching.


0 comments: