Divergent- my brother-in-law was insistent that we watched something that we hadn't seen before so my sister put this on. There are four books and currently (i think) three films. Similar to 'The Hunger Games' or 'The Maze Runner' this film's budget was actually dependent on the reception of 'The Hunger Games'. The film focuses on Beatrice 'Tris' Prior and Four, who are both divergent and Dauntless. The idea is that at a certain age you take an aptitude test to determine which faction you should join and then you attend the choosing ceremony, join that faction and leave your family behind. This is another film where you are not allowed out of the fence because you wont be protected and the government are trying to take over everyone's minds.
Dauntless are soldiers and Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) are some of the best in the faction but are both divergent. Times are changing and with Peter (Miles Teller) and Eric (Jai Courtney) being total idiots and evil you have a fairly obvious enemy for both of them. Kate Winslet makes a career change by taking on the real bad character.
Once you know that Alex Pettyfer was considered for the role of Four you start to appreciate just how good Theo James is. The character should be attractive but also strong, not just physically but strong willed as well and clever. Alex Pettyfer was never a soldier but Theo James delivers the perfect Four. Shailene Woodley is a new name to me and I spent the entire film thinking of her as a younger Lindsay Lohan from Freaky Friday. She was very good and even though the character was slightly different from the books and her romance with Four was way too obvious from the start she did a good job but I just don't get the feel that from this film or franchise she is going to dominate the screens in the same way that Jenifer Lawrence has done. Having seen Miles Teller in Whiplash, seeing him in this really makes you start to change your opinion of him and start to question everything that you remember of Whiplash. J.K. Simmons was supposed to be unpleasant in that role, he was supposed to push people past their breaking point but Miles Teller was the one who managed to push most of his family away- I no longer sympathise with his characters as much because in this film he is arrogant and quite evil. I look at actors who take on the same type of characters and if they don't have something distinguishable such as a voice that lends itself to evil then generally speaking they aren't acting, they are just being themselves. Miles Teller now needs to take on a completely different role to prove that he isn't just like Tom Felton.
I have reserved this entire paragraph just for Kate Winslet. It's said that she is always a nice character and her character in 'the reader' wasn't evil but also wasn't particularly nice. If we think of the films that she has been in she has always been a lead, beautiful and generally lovely. This is the first real evil character that she has played and instead of trying to be evil outright she just tried to be manipulative. It worked very well because we all know her as the complete opposite- to try and be evil and kill everyone with her bare hands would not convince us because of the character profile we have built up in our minds but to be manipulative, to be a believer but to not hit anyone is quite a skill and she was exceptional. She would have raised eyebrows when the casting was announced but once you have seen it you can agree that there is no better cast for this role.
The film differs a bit from the book and I suspect that they wanted to make it a stand alone film in case it didn't get a good reception but with the changes that they made it does make it a little harder to understand why they have made two other films. There are 4 books but this film changed the ending so the next film will not follow the next book to start with. I am tempted to put the next film on the list as well but i quite like it as a stand alone movie.
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