Film adaptation goes so wrong: The Giver

In 2014, book-to-movie adaptations were on the rise. Seemingly every favorite of both myself and my friends was turned into films overnight. Film adaptations like The Giver, The Maze Runner, Divergent, Mockingjay pt. 1, and more all came out within that year. My friends and I had this mission to go and see all the book to film adaptations in theaters, and if possible read the books before. One of the biggest events came in the Summer of 2014 when we all decided to read The Giver and see it in theaters on the day of opening.

Now, don’t tell my friends, but I lied. During that summer, I never ended up reading the book, and ended up attending the movie, with no prior knowledge of what the movie or the book was about. And, I hated it. Lucky for me, all my friends hated the movie too. The end didn’t make sense, I didn’t get it, and I didn’t think I would ever understand what this weird movie was about.

Then things changed. This summer when I was on my newest reading kick, I scrolled through my Goodreads account and saw “The Giver” on my want to read list and read it. I immediately fell in love with the book. I had never anticipated the beautiful nature of the book, and how connected I would get to the characters, in only less than one hundred pages of words.

The characters tell this of this odd and mysterious world, that has become completely desensitized to the things surrounding them, by completely removing the causes of fear, pain, rudeness, and more. The book tells a beautiful message about doing what is right no matter how difficult, and how sometimes you need to step out of your world and your comfort zone to change the world.

After reading the book, I went to one of my friends, who loved The Giver back in 2014, and admitted my mistakes to her. After seemingly hours of apologizing, she forgave me, and we rewatched the film adaptation of The Giver, hoping that it would be better with different and older eyes. We were wrong, the film was just as bad as it was the first time. We both agreed that too many things were changed, taking the odd and inspiring book, into a gross teen romance, with a side of the original.