Film Review
● Title: Divergent
● Director: Neil Burger
● Producer: Lucy Fisher, Douglas Wick, Pouya Shabazian
● Cast: Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Kate Winslet, Ansel Elgort, Zoë Kravitz,
Jai Courtney.
● Production Company: Summit Entertainment, Red Wagon Productions Red
Wagon Entertainment
● Genre: Action, Science fiction, Dystopia, Adventure, Thriller
● Animated: No
● Running time: 2 hours 19 minutes
Synopsis: Divergent is a movie about a girl named Tris who lives in a society divided into 5
factions, each with different responsibilities and policies. Abnegation, they value selflessness
and reproach vanity, Amity, they value peace, Candor, the ones who value honesty, Erudite,
the smart ones who value knowledge, and Dauntless, they value bravery. Tris is born in
Abnegation but must choose which faction she'll be in for the rest of her life, whether it still
is Abnegation or not. To help the young children pick a faction, there is a simulation known
as the aptitude test, that each one of them must take, which will then generate their
response to certain situations and tell them which faction they belong in. However,
regardless of their test result, each child has the right to any faction of their choice.
When Beatrice takes the test, she receives inconclusive results and therefore struggles
constantly with her identity. She is informed by Tori, her test coordinator, to not let anyone
ever about her results; that she is Divergent.
Eventually, Beatrice picks Dauntless at the Choosing Ceremony and leaves her family
behind.
Beatrice at first struggles to settle into Dauntless, especially with how she's overlooked
because of her previous faction she is viewed as 'weak' and 'too kind' for Dauntless,
however, through constant trials and conflict, she becomes stronger, mentally and
physically, with support from her instructor, Four, who later on becomes her boyfriend.
Initiates get ranked in order to determine who will stay in Dauntless or become factionless
and what job each person will get. Tris receives help from Four for all the assessments and
after extreme hard work, and a few times, death threats, eventually passes the tests and
becomes an official Dauntless.
Throughout all this, Erudite tries to remove Abnegation from the head of government, as
they believe they are a wiser and more suitable faction in developing the society. Erudite
secretly works with the Dauntless leaders in order to terminate not only the leaders in
Abnegation but the whole faction.
Throughout the movie Tris tries to hide her identity but eventually gets caught as she
refuses to participate in the genocide of her old faction. She must run away and find a way
to shut it down, or else not only her loved ones but everyone from her previous faction will
be executed.
Commentary: I think that Divergent is a very thrilling movie that covers quite a lot of
subjects, such as identity and love, and more serious things such as oppression,
manipulation, and deception. Altogether I was able to learn from Tris' mistakes, such as
when she thought she could trust her family, in particular her brother, but he stood by the
term faction before blood. Hence, it showed you cannot rely on anyone, even your own
family, and personally, I think pills like that are hard to swallow but it's the truth.
The movie was filmed well. Not only were the soundtracks very fitting and the fights looked
extremely realistic, but the fictional setting as well. I would recommend Divergent to
teenagers and above, but mostly teenagers to encourage them that no matter how
confusing life may get or how many of those you lose, you can find yourself and develop
yourself because of those trials. What didn't kill Tris made her stronger. What doesn't kill
you makes you stronger.
