My husband and I went to see the sequel Divergent Insurgent today and we spent an entire movie completely distracted from the outside world, watching the movie and story unfold in front of us. I haven’t read the book series, so I can only speak to the story as it is told via the visual medium and I haven’t any complaints. Shailene Woodley plays Triss, who conveys her emotional pain exceptionally well during the sequel, from what happened to her during the first movie. We meet her at the start having nightmares of her ordeal; losing both her parents and being forced to kill a “friend” who was going to shoot her, prior to escaping from the city and forced to seep refuge in another faction called Amity, the peace keepers.
Theo James plays Four, Triss’s first love, not a young boy but a strong, courageous man who sees something beyond in Triss and loves her for it, seeing their love buoy them during their very difficult and serious struggles against an entrenched political system that wants to eradicate people such as Triss, the divergent, gives the serious social critique, a much more personal meaning. The central issue of the divergent is that they belong not to only one faction, but to all and that can potentially create chaos and in a society that craves order and stability, hence the sharp divides between factions, divergence can only be seen as a threat.
So therein lies the conflict within their society; what to do with the faction-less, apparently their answer was to thrust them out of society and leave them to fend for themselves. However as we can only imagine what that situation begets; throw people out, people who may be very intelligent, clever, self-reliant and you create another society built on different values; a rival society bent on overthrowing the home.
At the end of the movie, not having read the books, I was left wondering was that the end or are we getting another installment? If so what is in store for our young lovers? However, if this was the end, I could live with how it ended, the story was well told.
laurieanichols 