Director Neil Burger brings to life the best-selling teenage sci-fi drama of Veronica Roth. Divergent opened in theaters March 21, and beat other movies like Muppets Most Wanted in ticket sales. According to LA Times, in one day Divergent sold 22.8 million tickets.
[Shailene Woodley] leaves her comfort of drama roles and took on the role of Beatrice Prior (Tris), the 16 year old heroine who must choose her place in a utopian society. Each “faction” within society lives according to restricted values in order to keep the peace.
Abnegation is the selfless faction. They help the elderly and feed the factionless. They are also the faction that runs the government. Dauntless is the brave faction. They are fearless and the soldiers for the society. Amity is the peaceful faction.
They value peace over anything else, and they provide freshly grown food for each faction. Candor is the honest faction. Since they can’t tell a lie, they serve as the lawyers in the society. Erudite is the intelligent faction and provides all of the medical services for the society.
Tris started out in the Abnegation faction and left to become a part of the Dauntless faction. There were many reasons why she left her original faction, but the main one was because she didn’t fit in and she couldn’t be selfless like her faction is supposed to be. The outliers, members who don’t fit into any factions, are called divergent. The Erudite faction sees the divergent members as a threat to the peaceful society. Also, the Erudite faction are wanting to take over the government ruling from the Abnegation, which is Tris’s old faction. While she is in her new faction, the Erudite are writing corrupt things about her old faction, but mainly toward her parents.
Four [Theo James] helps Tris hide her divergent aspects while she is in her new faction, but Tris is trying to push the limits of what she can do in the new faction. She wants to experience the free and alive feeling now that she is in the faction where these new feelings are seen as reasonable. She experiences this feeling when she hurls across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. Four notices this and tells Tris that “fear doesn’t shut you down, it wakes you up.” Four also warns her throughout the movie to act different because she’s starting to make herself look like a threat to the other dauntless transfers. This is also because she is embracing her divergent characteristics.
James interprets the character of Four very well. He brings out the intensity, secretive, very closed and guarded along with the loving aspect that is represented in the book. Shailene Woodley’s acting starts off a little rough, but she becomes more comfortable and relaxed as the movie goes on. She too portrays the character of Tris very well.
Known for her role in the “Titanic”, Kate Winslet plays Jeanine, the head of Erudite. This is her first time playing the antagonist and she portrays Jeanine very well. Another minor antagonist is Peter played by Miles Teller. Peter is the character that pushes Tris to the breaking point by ridiculing her. It is nice to see Teller in a serious role and that he is branching out of his comedic roles like in the “Awkward moment” and “21 and over.”
Divergent has action, very strong lead characters and a love story. However, like many books that turn into movies, the movie didn’t have a few important details. One important scene in the movie missing details is the scene where Tris gets attacked. In the book the scene has a little more intensity than it has in the movie. Tris gets beat up and Four comes to rescue her after he hears her scream.
After the attack, in Four’s room, the details within the book give the readers the impression that Four’s room is smaller and private. This happens again with the control room; the book paints the image that the control room is smaller with more computers and wires. Similarly, the fear room was completely different in the movie. The fear room is where the dauntless members face their fears. In the book, it is a metal box on the roof but in the movie it is inside the dauntless compound.
Also, the relationship between Tris and Four in the movie doesn’t grow as it does in the book. Another difference was the order of the scenes and the information that the scenes give the audience. On the scene where Dauntless faction competes by playing capture the flag, the scene comes out early in the movie.
