Let's Go Out To The Movies: Divergent

Alo Party Peoples.

I'm not a YA novel person. I've certainly read plenty of them, but as of late I haven't really enjoyed much of it. Usually when these kinds of things get films, I couldn't care less. In fact, if it weren't for my younger sister being obsessed with dystopia, I wouldn't have even bothered to see Divergent. But she really wanted to go, and I didn't realize that it was another week until Noah comes out, so we're talking about this instead.

About a hundred years after a non-descript but incredibly destructive war, the last of mankind has holed itself up in Chicago. To prevent another war, the survivors have divided themselves into factions corresponding to human virtues. Said factions are; selflessness, honesty, intelligence, kindness, and bravery. I know they have names, but I don't really care. As soon as children in this society reach the age of sixteen, they are psychically tested to determine which faction they belong in, and then they can just ignore the test and get into any of them. (Then why have the first test?) Our focal character, Tris played by Shailene Woodley, is born into Team Selflessness, but her test comes back inconclusive, marking her as Divergent, and that is a dangerous thing because she can't be neatly slotted into a faction. (Why does that matter if anyone can join any faction regardless of test results?) She decides to join up with Team Bravery and most of the film is focused on her training here while forging relationships with the supporting cast that has no real personality.

Eventually after graduation day, Team Intelligence launches a coup via mind control of Team Bravery to overthrow the governing Team Selflessness (okay fine, they are Euridite, Dauntless, and Abnegation respectively), and it turns out the Divergents are immune to mind control. So we have a dragged out shootout for a finale.

There is nothing to say about this film's presentation. Most dystopias are extensions of an issue of the time they are written. The Hunger Games is an exaggeration of reality television and class disparity, The Matrix was an extrapolation of the growing importance and power of the Internet, 1984 was about totalitarian abuse of advancing technology, and Gattaca was a warning that manipulating our genes to improve ourselves would create an overcaste and an undercaste. Divergent's big issue, is that there is no real issue. As Todd In The Shadows remarked on Twitter "I admire "Divergent" for creating a dystopian society which has absolutely no relation or relevance to the real world." Seriously, what about this premise is supposed to be relevant to anybody except the target audience of teenagers that don't fit neatly into a certain clique? I'm technically part of that target audience, but I just didn't give a damn.

In conclusion, it's not bad, not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, but I can't think of any reason to see this other than watching a book you love come to life. For a movie about escaping conformity, Divergent seems to have no interest in standing out from the crowd.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B