Divergent
In the dystopia posited by Neil Burger’s long, somewhat turgid adaptation of Veronica Roth’s popular young-adult novel Divergent, society – or rather, Chicago – has been divided, not unlike most American high schools, into five “factions” determined by personality types. The Amity faction is known for being peaceful farmers; those in Candor are (duh) honest; the Erudite are intelligent and snooty; the Dauntless are brave and responsible for security. Our heroine, Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) belongs to the fifth faction: Abnegation, known for being selfless, and currently in charge of city government. But she wants to break free from her stifling clan and see new things: She looks upon the happy, tatted-up Dauntless warriors with envy and aspiration.
Beatrice gets her chance on Choosing Day, a rite of passage whereby the city’s teenagers decide whether to choose a new faction (and abandon their families) or continue with their old one. Before that, however, they’re subjected to a highly scientific aptitude test that tells them the faction in which they actually fit. That’s when Beatrice learns she is Divergent – meaning that she doesn’t belong to any one faction. Unfortunately, the Divergent aren’t just oddballs. They are outcasts, unwelcome anywhere and often hunted down.
And so Beatrice hides her divergence and joins Dauntless. As an initiate, now calling herself Tris, she has to endure a lengthy training process with the rest of the newbies. Their trainer, Four (Theo James), at first seems ruthless, but soon he and Tris are making doe eyes at each other. Will he discover her secret? Why is he called Four anyway? Also, why does Erudite hate Abnegation so? And what does Dauntless have to do with it? Oh, and how can the personality types of the future be so ironclad, if people are still allowed to choose their factions? (Put another way: If you test as Abnegation but you choose Erudite, aren’t you also Divergent in some sense?)
That last, peculiarly nagging question is the only one not answered by the film Divergent, scripted by Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor. (It’s entirely possible that it’s answered in the books, which I have not read.) All sci-fi YA stories these days have a lot of setup and political intrigue, but while The Hunger Games expertly used plot to clarify its world to us, Divergent uses narration and scenes of people explaining things. Indeed, as a dystopian vision, the movie is largely a waste – a blah YA adventure that seems assembled from better genre forerunners. (The Hunger Games comparison is unavoidable: The two series have inspired a fan rivalry not seen since the Kirk-Picard Wars of 1994.) As an action movie, too, it leaves something to be desired. Burger films the hand-to-hand combat of the training scenes with humdrum efficiency, and he’s at a loss when it comes to the surprisingly copious gunfights, staging them with a stiffness that slows the action rather than enhancing it.
Still, there are some nice set pieces. An initiation ritual that involves our heroine zip lining headfirst across the darkened Chicago skyline is both magical and terrifying. And you have to respect any wannabe blockbuster that spends this much time putting its characters into surreal dream visions and “fear landscapes.” This dystopia loves to get inside your head; or rather, it loves to watch you go inside your own head.
But Divergent shines as a romance and a character study, thanks in large part to Woodley, an actress who seems better matched to this sort of warrior-with-a-nonconformist-soul material than even The Hunger Games‘ Jennifer Lawrence did. She has an amazingly expressive face – her eyes seem to be made of liquid glass, hovering between coolness and heartbreak in a way that befits the torn character. It’s a deceptively tough part, one that requires a convincing steeliness while conveying inner reserves of fear, hurt and compassion.
As Four, Tris’ trainer and love interest, one with secrets of his own, James is also effectively hunky and likable. Together, they have great chemistry: The force of their bond carries the film through many of its rough patches, particularly in the increasingly ridiculous second half. Divergent may be a desperately, awkwardly uneven movie, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself caring for these characters more than you expect.
