Personally, I did not really enjoy this movie. It was very different from the book. Since the book was written in 1994 and the movie was made in 2014, there were obviously many differences due to the difference in time periods. There were also many differences that I am not sure what the purpose was.
Personally, I would not recommend that my future students watch this movie after reading The Giver. I do not think it enhanced my view of the story. I think it actually did the opposite.
- The book was much more futuristic than I pictured while reading. This didn't bother me too much because I understand why it was made that way.
- The characters were portrayed differently than in the book. The Giver was much more tough while I thought he would be much more gentle from the book. Jonas was much older and he also didn't have pale eyes (which really bothered me).
- Jonas and Fiona had much more of a love story going on. This was far from the book and I believe it was as more of a selling aspect than the book.
- The setting was a little different than I pictured from the book as well. Elsewhere was more of an unreachable place separated by a cliff.
- Like I mentioned in my blog post about the book itself, I did not like the ending in the movie either. I wish we would have seen the Community after the memories were released.
Personally, I would not recommend that my future students watch this movie after reading The Giver. I do not think it enhanced my view of the story. I think it actually did the opposite.