SYNOPSIS: “Orwell: 2+2=5,” a new documentary now playing in theatres from BAFTA-winning director Raoul Peck, is an in-depth look at how the personal experiences of iconoclastic writer George Orwell influenced his work, most notably his dystopian novel “Nineteen Eighty-Four.” Linking the personal with the political, Peck provides an unnerving, look at Orwell’s ideas, which feel as timely now as they did when he wrote his most famous work seventy-five years ago. “If you want a vision of the future Winston,” O’Brien says to protagonist Winston Smith in the book, “Imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.”
CAST: Narrated by Damian Lewis. Directed by Raoul Peck.
REVIEW: Analysis of Orwell’s works, primarily “Nineteen Eighty-Four” and “Animal Farm” is nothing new, but in “Orwell: 2+2=5” Academy Award® nominated and BAFTA-winning director Raoul Peck digs deep, connecting the personal with the political, to weave together a fabric of agitprop that looks to history to provide a glimpse of the future.
The biographical element begins with Orwell, born Eric Arthur Blair in what is now the state of Bihar in India, questioning imperialistic rule. Using Orwell’s own words from letters, books and essays and narrated by Damian Lewis, “Orwell: 2+2=5” is a portrait of political awakening.
Using vintage movie clips, newsreels and contemporary footage Peck draws parallels between Orwell’s ominous vision of a world controlled by Big Brother, the totalitarian leader who wields complete power, and various governments now operating around the world. The usual suspects are essayed, including Ugandan dictator Yoweri Museveni, Indian Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, Israeli P.M. Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump.
As Orwell’s moral and political opinions take root, the film toggles between his personal observations on injustice and vintage and contemporary footage of how the author’s ideas of “newspeak”—ie: Putin’s classification of warfare against Ukrainian citizens as a “special military operation”—“doublethink,” the holding of two contradictory beliefs simultaneously as truth, colonial exploitation, historical revisionism, media disinformation and, of course, the core value of personal freedom, are as relevant and provocative today as they were when “Nineteen Eighty-Four” was published in 1949.
Peck doesn’t back down from presenting confrontational images and ideas. His juxtaposition of the mass 1946 execution of Nazis by hanging in Ukraine butted up against the US Capitol melee on January 6, 2021 feels overwrought, but should, nonetheless, inspire conversation, which is, ultimately, Peck’s purpose in making the film.
A two-headed hydra of a documentary, “Orwell: 2+2=5” works as both a biography of Orwell and a look at how his political observations and lessons are chillingly revelatory today. The ideas in the film aren’t exactly new, but the timeliness of his political philosophy is chilling. It’s a slick plea for the awareness of how totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.
These days many speculative fiction films are set in dystopian cities, places ravaged by war, famine or man’s stupidity. “The Giver” goes a different way, setting the action in a utopian society where everyone is equal and no one, except for a young man named Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), questions anything.
Based on Lois Lowry’s young adult novel of the same name, “The Giver” is set in an ascetic world divided into climate-controlled communities. Climate isn’t the only thing that is tightly controlled, however. A strict set of simple rules—like “Use precise language” and “never tell a lie”—keep people in line but to make sure the citizens conform, they’re given a morning injection—the Prozac of the nation.
The docile population lives a colorless existence, where their every move is monitored and all choice has been removed because, as the Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) says, “When people have the right to choose they choose wrong every single time.”
When Jonas is chosen to be the Receiver of Memory, the recipient and keeper of all mankind’s darkest secrets and memories, he begins to realize that the world was not always monochrome, that it was once a colourful place where love—“ a word so antiquated it no longer has meaning”—and pain existed side by side with war, peace and all the other messy stuff that make humans human.
“The Giver” is George Orwell Lite, willy-nilly lifting from not only “1984,” but Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” and a host of young adult novels. It’s an unholy combination of dystopian themes and tropes, banged together to create a convincing, if somewhat dull world.
Shot in austere black and white, the highly controlled community is like 1950s America on film, structured, monotone in race and idealized. The conformity on display is chilling, at least the idea of it is. The film is too restrained to show us the detrimental effects of the grinding monotony of living in a place where sameness is valued above all. We’re told that the memories of the past are agonizing, “Sometimes the pain of the memories is too much,” says The Giver (Jeff Bridges)—but the flashbacks to the wild, untamed life that came before the enforced conformity aren’t as revealing as they’re meant to be. Colorful stock footage shots of people dancing, animal cruelty and other slices of life are meant to shine a light on the human condition but are, for the most part, no more provocative than anything we see on the nightly news.
They are jarring, like a screaming barker commercial for Monster Trucks interrupting an episode of “Masterpiece Theatre,” but only because they’re such a break in tone from the rest of the film. These visions may rock Jonas’s world, but they don’t make much of an impression on ours.
Also not making much of an impression is Meryl Streep in a generic villainess role. The cast’s other Oscar winner, Jeff Bridges is in full-on old codger mode, reviving his gruff voice for “True Grit” and bringing some humanity to a movie that should be teeming with it, but isn’t.
The remaining cast, even the leads, Thwaites as the young man who longs for something more in life and Odeya Rush, his love interest who has a harder time imagining a world without bland orthodoxy, aren’t given enough to do to make us root for them. Ditto supporting actors Alexander Skarsgård and Katie Holmes.
“The Giver” is a small movie with big ideas about individual freedoms, memory, traditions and customs. Important themes one and all, but they’re wrapped in a movie that does not do them justice.
