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In the wake of Harry Potter, The Hunger Games and Twilight, Hollywood seems to have decided that every young adult novel of even minor note is worthy of a big-budget movie adaptation. Divergent is a product of this trend. It has the same generic, tasteless style as the rest of the detritus in this genre. It’s ham-fisted and ridden with clichés. And with a stellar lead performer and an 85 million dollar budget, it’s an inexcusable waste of resources.

The plot of Divergent is derivative as hell, cherry-picking elements from better stories. Beatrice lives in a post-apocalyptic utopian Chicago where society is divided into five “factions” where their jobs and social roles are determined. It’s The Giver meets Hunger Games with a little sorting hat. When Beatrice discovers a brewing coup, she must stop it.

The world of the film is clumsy and dumb. Beatrice joins the faction “Dauntless”, which is supposedly the police, but all they really seem to do is climb things (boy, do they love climbing). They’re a group of Ubermenschian fascistic douchebags, led by a Macklemore lookalike. Herein lies a huge problem with Divergent - I have a moral problem with the heroes of a film being a “might makes right” group whose philosophy is based on violence, while the Gestapo-like villains that are ruining the world are scientists. When mixed in with the less-than-subtle metaphors about born-again Christianity, the film implies a troubling right-wing philosophy.

Shailene Woodley is amazing here, as always. She’s the most exciting young actress today, and she delivers a phenomenal performance in this schlep of a film. Why is the next step for great new actresses in Hollywood a generic YA/comic book adaptation (Emma Stone, Jennifer Lawrence, etc)? It underlines the notion of Hollywood wasting talent and money on useless adaptations. The studios need to start valuing good material over brand recognition.

Published in Volume 68, Number 25 of The Uniter (March 27, 2014)