Dystopian future is all the rage these days. Between The Hunger Games sequels and the upcoming film The Giver there are plenty of dystopian totalitarian societies cloaked in guise of utopia to keep fans pleased.
Divergent is another dystopian story set in the future (as all such stories are). In this future people are broken up into factions. The factions are Abegation: those who govern and serve the people via charity. Abegation is very monastic looking, simple grey and tan clothing. The second faction is Erudite or the thinkers. The Erudite concern themselves with science and facts. There is Candor, which is a faction of truth tellers, people of integrity who are suited for judical matters. There is Amity, which is the agricalutral faction. Amity is kind and loving and quite hippy/environmental. Finally there is Dauntless who are military and police force rolled into one.
Our story starts with a Beatrice, played by Shailene Woodley. Beatrice is from Abegation, but she has always desired to be part of Dauntless. At testing day, when Beatrice goes to discover which faction she really is suited for, she sits in a chair reminiscent of the Matrix and takes a drug. In her hellucinations she faces her fears and awakens to a panicked overseeing who tells Beatrice she is Divergent.
On choosing day, Beatrice and hundreds of initiates go to a stadium to choose the faction they want to join. The ceremony is very pagan, with intimates cutting their wrist and letting a drop if their blood fall into one of the bowels representing the five factions. This was the first alarming moment to me in the film, for pagan rites of blood oath are not safe spiritually or physically and this film and I presume the book too makes it an important albeit necessary practice.
Beatrice chooses Dauntless and goes through a if iodine boot amp of training in hand to hand combat, knife throwing, and shooting. In the process, Beatrice using her new alias Tris develops a relationship with an instructor named Four. Four stands out for two reasons: compassion and tatoos. In Dauntess there is tattoo parlor where Tris and every Dauntless intitate or member gets ink in their skin. The film seems to endorse inking ones skin especially in the form of Four who's entire back is covered with an intricate and politically incorrect tattoo. The Bible says to not "mark yourself with pagan tattoos." (Leviticus 19:28). Even now there is crisis in the ink business as black ink for tattooing has been found to be filled with toxins. People are now getting Sepsis and other skin/blood diseases from just getting the non-toxic tattoos. Perhaps God new cutting skin and putting ink designs on it and would be a health problem? Big surprise, The Lord was right as He always has been.
The rest of Divergent is double sided sword. On one hand the desire to defy conforminity and being marginalized echoes "be not confirmed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." (Romans 12:2). Interestingly the renewing mind part is in the film as Besteice faces her fears in hullo owning ans learns to control thise fears and determine the difference in her mind between truth and lie. Again in pivotal moment, when Tris is being tracked and hunted by brain washed Dauntless soldiers, her mother lays down her life to save Tris. Near the end Four days, "there is no greater love," regarding Tris' parents ds ricin themselves for her. This is an almost exact quote from. Christ who says, "there is no greater love than for a man to lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). Love again prevails when Four is under the control of the evil Erudite faction and is ordered to kill Tris. In a dramatic moment Four had a gun to Tris's head and is ready to pull the trigger when she says, "it's ok, I love you." Four is able to free himself of Erudite control at this profession of live and turn against the enemy. Here we see echoed the words of St. Paul, "faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love." (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Divergent has diverse messages. On one hand it proclaims Biblical truths, sometimes word for word. At other times it has pagan practices at the forefront: body piercings, tattoos, drugs, and cutting. A viewer could easily ignore the negative aspects and hone in on the anti-totalitarian and Christian elements. But we must not ignore the propaganda of pagan rites. This film will encourage youths (teens to young adults) to want ink or tattoos and perhaps embrace the dark side of not conforming known as anarchy.
Divergent in addition to the tattoo and blood packs, is too much like The Hunger Games and the upcoming Giver film. The Giver was written long before Divergent, but if compared they are essentially the same story: perfect totalitarian world, villainess who advocates that individualism and passions are dangerous, and a mental phenomenon of some kind. Divergent and Hunger Games seen different, but both have a strong female warrior types, and both have a regime that has people separated in Factions or Districts and has the youth participate in post war peace measures such as The Hunger Games and The Testing & Choosing Day plus training in the chosen faction.
Divergent isn't original nor is if as thrilling as Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games Trilogy (though I do not recommend the Hunger Games either). While Catchinf Fire had great character development, action, and cinematography, Divergent is devoid of all three in compression. The Factions are dull looking, the action too tame, and the character development too cliché. This film honestly felt low budget and was not as immersing as The Hunger Games film.
Lastly, I recommend that my brothers and sisters see Divergent with strong discerning filters. There are nuggets to be gleamed, but beware of the devils in Dauntless. Personally, I do not recommend the film merely because of the movie making quality and poor acting. Even Shailene could not save this film that diverges into an archaic story without the passion and pomp of other dystopian films.
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