3) Divergent
In a post-Hunger Games movie landscape, a film like Divergent is understandably cast as derivative, generic material, covering territory that we feel has already been covered by Katniss and company, who just happened to get their blockbuster first. The fact that these types of movies are largely targeted towards an adolescent audience also doesn’t help much in terms of hipness. We have been told by the entertainment media that Shailene Woodley is the new Jennifer Lawrence, and here is her star vehicle that will catalyze this prophetic groupthink-y assumption.
The difference is that Woodley is not Jennifer Lawrence, and her character, Tris, is not Katniss Everdeen, which is to say that the former does not possess the toughness and IDGAF-ness of the latter, which adds a different wrinkle to the dystopian hero tale. Divergent is also more on the nose with its “who am I!” theme, which, again, is geared toward a teenage mindset—not a bad thing necessarily, but certainly less palatable for adult audiences who are, like, so beyond that.
Again, there were two things that won me over while watching Divergent. I appreciated Tris’ clear lack of physical strength and the ways she had to make up for this lack. It played like a girl power narrative where brains triumphed over brawn, and collaboration proved more effective than one macho guy single-handedly defeating evil. The second thing I enjoyed immensely—and this is well worth the price of admission—was getting to see Golden Globe Award Nominee Shailene Woodley punch Academy Award Winner Kate Winslet in her legendary face. I don’t know what it was about that image, but goddamn was it satisfying.