Divergent is a
perfect symbol of the stagnation that plagues the young adult fiction
genre. It’s so rife with cliché and
painfully obvious symbolism that it’s very hard to take seriously. It falls into all the trappings of a genre
that was popularized by Harry Potter
and hasn’t been as well executed since.
Worst of all, though, because the writing is so lazy and the plot so
banal, it makes for a very long, very boring movie, and it’s sad to think that
money and resources are going to be spent to make a trilogy out of this (which
of course means three more movies when the last installment gets split into two
parts, because that’s how money happens.)
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Let’s go through the young adult fiction checklist, shall we? Dystopian future where people are split into
factions based on a single personality trait?
Check, complete with color-coordinated outfits! A female protagonist whose sole defining
characteristic is that she’s an inexplicably gifted individual? Check, for main character Tris is a
Divergent, someone who doesn’t conform to your society’s rules, man! (Not that she has any personality beyond
being a cypher for the audience’s demographic to project themselves onto.) A dog-eat-dog education system where our
protagonist starts at the bottom and pushes through by virtue of her
determination and newly budding gifts?
You better believe it! And of
course, let’s not forget an ending that leaves things wide open for future
installments and doesn’t resolve any major character arcs, as minimalist as
those arcs are.
See, this is all a very obvious allegory for high school,
right down to a clique-y cafeteria scene and an instructor who’s out for
blood. If you feel different than
everyone else and think your flourishing personality sets you apart from all
the two-dimensional drones that populate your classes, then guess what? You’re special and this film is just the
empowerment fantasy for you! Tris feels
just how you would feel in any of these situations, because you can see
yourself in her. And, frankly, that’s
lazy and manipulative writing.
I wouldn’t even be that hard on the film if it did anything
interesting and new with its premise.
Instead, we’re plopped right into Generic Dystopian Future #723, with
dull grey concrete acting as the backdrop for almost every scene. The villains of the film seek to wipe out
Divergents because they threaten social order and stand in the way of their own
domination, which is the same crap we’ve seen a million times before, perhaps
most notably from Saturday morning cartoon villains. Hell, even the love interest is really only
there as eye-candy for all the Tris-wannabes in the audience.
So is this the worst that young adult fiction has to
offer? No, definitely not. Twilight
is going to be hard to top in that respect; at least Divergent is an empowerment fantasy, not a submissively abusive one. But at best, Divergent is bland. At worst, it’s a lazy attempt to garner a
franchise following. I recognize that
I’m not the film’s target audience, but I think teenagers can be smarter than
this if you don’t pander to their insecurities.
This film does nothing new with a very tired premise and clearly
emotionally manipulates its audience by targeting the vulnerabilities in their emotional
development. Divergent isn’t worth your time, especially with a running time of
two hours and fifteen minutes. Just
watch almost any of the Harry Potter
films to get a much better example of young adult fiction done well.
See how I said almost
any Harry Potter film? Can you guess which one I exclude? Take a guess in the comments below.
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