‘Divergent’
self-sacrificing souls who, because of their honesty, run the government.
You’re given an aptitude test to tell you which faction you’re best suited for. However, you’re also given the choice of picking your own faction during the Choosing Ceremony, no matter what your test says.
Beatrice (Woodley) is born into the Abnegation faction, so chances are she’ll stay put. It’s tempting, because once you choose your faction, there’s no going back. “Faction before blood” is the society’s motto. But the test shows that Beatrice doesn’t conform to any one faction. She is a rare Divergent, and as such she constitutes a potential danger to the order of things.
Yes, the pain-of-being-different theme is hit rather too directly on the head, but young-adult novels aren’t known for their subtlety, and neither are the movies based on them. Beatrice is advised to keep her mouth shut and go along with the Choosing Ceremony.
She does, but, to the surprise of her parents (Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn), Beatrice chooses the Dauntless faction, about which she’s been fascinated for years. There’s a fine line between badass and dumbass, and the Dauntless bunch straddle it when they do things like leap from moving trains instead of waiting for them to stop, their preferred method of exiting. But it’s more exciting to Beatrice than the quiet life of sacrifice among the Abnegation faction, so off she goes.
She shortens her name to Tris and begins to train. And train, and train and then train some more. Burger spends a good hour on the cutthroat, competitive tryouts, led by the sadistic Eric (Jai Courtney).
Four (Theo James), a trainer, takes a special interest in Tris, and yes, you can read as much into that as you like. She’s rather slight for this kind of thing, but that’s built into the story.
Meanwhile, the cold, no-nonsense Jeanine (Kate Winslet), leader of the Erudite faction, keeps showing up. Rumor has it they’re hunting Divergents. And that’s not the only trick Jeanine and the Erudite have up their sleeve.
Everything is building toward a showdown, but it’s a long time coming. Surprises are few and far between, although there is one nice twist that helps Tris out.
But for the most part, it’s all so generic, so paint-by-numbers. Woodley makes Tris easy to root for — only she and Winslet seem to be having any fun — but it’s hard to become invested in the convoluted, rambling story. And at two hours and 19 minutes, it rambles for a while.
The themes of self-reliance and individuality so common to this kind of film, to this kind of franchise, are noble. But there are better places to find them than “Divergent.”