CAN YOU TAKE THE GIVER?
In Pleasantville (1998), the supposedly serene but dull 1950s are viewed from the perspective of the liberated 1990s. Based on the novel by Lois Lowry, The Giver presents an image of a more serene future beyond the turbulent present. Something catastrophic has happened in the past, and the new beginning is a community isolated from the rest of the world in which there is a strict morality and equality such that civility reigns and there are no differences to provide a basis for conflict. The elders, led by the Chief Elder (played by Meryl Streep), enforce the morality by imposing surveillance and liquidating those who misbehave. All are required to take an antidepressant drug daily, which removes emotions and the ability to think outside the box. When children are born, they are assigned to Nurturers, and later assigned to adoptive families—but not to birthfamilies. No abortion is allowed, and infanticide is the solution for a baby lacking serenity. After children complete their schooling, the elders determine what their occupations will be upon graduation, and the children accept their assignments because “the elders are always right.” But there is one person who appears to have special intelligence—Jonas (played by Brenton Thwaites). He is assigned the role Receiver of Memory and must study with The Giver (Jeff Bridges) during the day while continuing to fraternize with his girlfriend Fiona (Odeya Rush) and living with his assigned parents (Alexander Skarsgård and Katie Holmes) and sister (Emma Tremblay). The Giver puts Jonas into trances to experience different climates, races, religions, as well as biodiversity, sexuality and human conflict. But Jonas stops taking the tranquilizer and begins to encounter emotions, even love, a word that has been banned because emotions cause conflict. Director Philip Noyce has thus made a kind of Pleasantville II in which the black-and-white world is gradually transformed into full color, though just how that is possible seems unclear, given the premises laid in the story. But why does Noyce, who won a Political Film Society award as director of The Quiet American (2002), popularize the Tea Party view that government is to be distrusted, especially when overregulating, thereby earning the praise of Sarah Pailin? MH