Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgård and yes, even Taylor Swift are all in the Hollywood adaptation of The Giver, which gives junior high school kids one less book they will actually have to read for school.
It's pretty jarring to see all these famous faces in this exceptionally familiar work. That being said, The Giver is basically the role Jeff Bridges was born to play, and you can't go wrong with Meryl. Thankfully the we've seen Brenton Thwaites (who plays the main character Jonas) in The Signal, and he's absolutely fantastic, so he should be able to play ball with these big names. That being said, this trailer is kind of ridiculous with all the "oh noes" zooming tight shots.
But more importantly this trailer reveals that The Giver will not be in black and white which honestly isn't that surprising, but still a pretty big deviation from the way these characters perceived their world.
Based off the book by Lois Lowry, The Giver is set in a utopian future where the people of Earth no longer feel the terrible emotions of their ancestor — no more pain, no more sadness, no more suffering. However, it's one person's job to savor all these emotions for the new society, and that person is called The Receiver (The Giver as well kind of). Main character Jonas is The Receiver's new apprentice; suffice to say, the more you learn about the real world, the less utopian it becomes.
The Giver hits theaters on August 15th.