Divergent Review by Aniela

Divergent Review

The 2014 American science fiction film, directed by Neil Burger, is based on the world-wide best selling novel, Divergent, written by Veronica Roth. A society in which people are divided into factions based on human virtues. Beatrice Prior is warned that she is Divergent and will never fit into any one of the factions, and later learns a sinister plot brewing in her seemingly perfect society.

*This Review Contains Spoilers*

Starting with the negatives, firstly, if you read the book before watching the movie would know the amount of important scenes the director didn’t include. Edward is a character whose role is reasonably important in the divergent sequel, yet he went entirely unmentioned throughout the divergent film. Having him in the film in a specific scene would explains the competitiveness of dauntless and how far they would go. If he was included in Divergent, it would explain his history and Tris’ relationship with him. Having this scene in Divergent would really help with understanding Insurgent.

Secondly, the tall and beautiful Shailene Woodley, is definitely not the small and weak Tris we imagine in the book. I believe that her acting was quite poor. She portrayed Beatrice Prior as a strong, attractive woman in Abnegation and Dauntless. In the book Beatrice (Tris) is very weak and at risk of being removed from Dauntless until near the end. Her inner thoughts are very important to the story. During the first part of Tris being in Dauntless, she is terrified. She acts strong but she is feeling incredibly upset and weak. I believe Shailene Woodley did not portray this correctly. I also find that in the movie she can seem a bit cocky which doesn’t fit with Tris’ original personality. Also, one of the characters, Tori, has quite compassionate bond with Tris, but in the movie she is quite sharp, strict and a bit bored with Tris, she doesn’t have that bond like in the book.

Lastly, I believe Neil Burger was the wrong director for this movie. The writing was a bit cheesy and the scenes were too predictable. The ending was very different in the movie, I might have appreciated it if I hadn’t read the book. Four was supposed to hack the computers and cancel the serum from controlling the people of Abnegation. But in the movie Four and Tris injected the serum into Jeanine Matthews, who then disabled the program.  It wasn’t a terrible scene, it just felt rushed and if they left it like the book, it would of explained that Four was good at hacking computers, which is useful in the next movies. Also the Fear landscapes were incorrectly portrayed. Details of Four were supposed to be revealed in his fear landscape, he seems unfazed by it. This scene is so critical to the book, it is the first time we see how vulnerable Four really is. Four never tells Tris to call him Tobias in the movie either. In Tris’ fear landscape she sacrifices herself for her family, but in the movie the scene ends with her pointing a gun to them.

Overall when reading the book I was worried about how it would translate into the movie, there isn’t a lot of action and most of the story is internalized to the protagonist. There were a few good scenes, like the zip line, aptitude test and simulations but the director tried to make a lot of changes to the story which I think was terrible. I personally think it wasn’t a good 2- hour interpretation.