Page to Screen: Divergent

Last week, I reviewed the book Divergent by Veronica Roth. Today’s review is of Divergent, the movie based on the book.

I have mixed feelings about the movie. To avoid spoiling the book or movie, I’ll have to be somewhat vague. While the movie followed the basic outline of the book’s plot, there were some key scenes either condensed or left out all together. For instance, the ferris wheel scene was truncated and I feel like that scene is important to developing Four’s character and his interaction with Tris in that scene is important too.

At the same time, I understand why the changes were made. Since the book is written from Tris’s first person point of view, a lot of the story is told in her head, revealed in her thoughts about people and the action. Unless a voice-over narration is used, which it wasn’t, what Tris is thinking has to be shown in her actions and in other people’s reactions to her.

Also, the book is almost five-hundred pages long so condensing the story somewhat was necessary to make the movie a reasonable length, I’m sure. In doing this, the action was made more “Hollywood”, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

If I hadn’t read the book, I think I would have enjoyed this movie more. In and of itself, it’s fun and action packed. The directing of the fight scenes was impressive as well. I was pleasantly surprised with how well Shailene Woodley played Tris. She acted a lot more tough than I thought she could. And her physicality in the fight scenes was impressive. I still think of her as Amy from The Secret Life of the American Teenager but she’s clearly come a long way since that show.

I think my expectations for this movie were too high. If you’ve read the book, go into it with your expectations in check and just enjoy the ride.