The Giver

The Giver is an 2014 film that is an adaptation of a 2013 "Young Adult" novel about a future utopian world that (spoiler alert) turns out to be dystopian. It's a good example of what starts to look like a Hero story (mostly because it's focused on character played by a Millennial actor, with mentor played by a Prophet actor) but turns out to match well with First Turning/Second Turning transition.

If you haven't been here before, please take a look at the Introduction to Generations, the Generational Attributes and the Four Stories in order to get up to speed on how all this works, and the terms being used.

The setting of the story is a utopian community with a short set of rules ("Use Precise Language," "Take Your Injections") that is a standard view of First Turning community. While it is more circumscribed than, say, the United States in the 1950s, the combination of a strong ruling organization with a the view of an outwardly perfect world is often how First Turnings appear. This is reinforced by the idea of The Ruin, clearly a Fourth Turning sort of event that led to society's current status.

The story focuses on Jonas, the new Receiver of Memory, learning from the existing Giver, played by Boomer Jeff Bridges (b. 1949). As he learns about how people lived before the Ruin, he starts to see that his current world is not as perfect as it initially appears. People used to have emotions, connect with their families, and engage in other behaviors that seem, to Jonas, reasonable and worthwhile.

It's worth noting that corruption, and the perception of corruption, is common in First Turnings. As a Second Turning begins, this becomes an obvious and convenient enemy for those proposing society-wide change. He eventually goes off on his own to return memories to the rest of society. He is learning who he is, opposing a corrupt society, and achieving victory through sheer moral superiority: It's a Prophet story.

The generations included here are harder to really say, since most of the available attributes are tied up in the story and the setting. Jonas and the other young actors are Millennials, while the elders (like Meryl Streep, b. 1949) are Boomers. Is Jonas selfless, competent, rational? No more than the others his age, who help him escape.

As previously shown, though, there's no reason a Prophet story can't do well during a Crisis, so that's not the main reason it didn't do as well as hoped. One possibility is that it's just too on-the-nose, too convinced of being right about what should happen to a society such as this that it keeps hammering the concept home - they kill babies! they watch everyone! - that it's predictable and has no tension.