Film review

The YFG and I went to see the second film in the Divergent series on Saturday afternoon. This one is called "Insurgent". They are based on a trilogy of books by Veronica Roth, who has a tiny part in the film.  

These two are the main characters, Tris Prior [Shailene Woodley] and Tobias Eaton/Four [Theo James].  Needless to say in a teenage film, there is a thread of a romance between them as well as the main thread of the story.  It was interesting to find out that Theo James is British and has actually acted in an early episode of our beloved Downton Abbey as the poor chap who died in Lady Mary's boudoir!

Her mother is played by Ashley Judd, who I have watched no end of times in Double Jeopardy.

(image from theguardian.com)

The film a science-fiction based story, set in a Chicago which is almost destroyed and is surrounded by an enormous fence, more to keep the people safe than to keep them in, they are told.

The people are separated into five factions, consistent with their dominant personality traits.  Tris and Four both come from Abnegation families, but end up in Dauntless, the warrior faction.

(image from pinterest.com)

Teenagers are tested for their aptitude and can change faction from the one into which they were born.  Tris's parents were devastated that Tris chose Dauntless and her brother moved into the Erudite faction.  At her testing, Tris finds that she has dominant traits from so  many of the factions that she doesn't actually fit into any one of them particularly - she is a "Divergent" which the government seek to find and destroy because they see people who can't be pigeonholed neatly as a threat to a stable society.  

It was an interesting film and I had read the first two books in the trilogy - and now I find that I have to go and read the last one, Allegiant, as I am not sure I can wait two years to find out how the story ends.  As is the trend with books like this which are being made into films, they are all dragging out the final book by making it in to two films.  Film-makers did that with the Twilight books and are now doing it with the Hunger Games books too.  And so Allegiant will be made into two films.

We went to a different cinema from our usual venue, and it was lovely.  The Light cinema in Wisbech made a refreshing change from the Cineworld cinema that we had regularly frequented.  Yes, the Light cinema doesn't have an arrangement to take Tesco Clubcard vouchers so I did have to part with real money but it was cleaner, more comfortable and more welcoming, so we are definitely going back.  It wasn't expensive as these things go - the tickets for the two of us booked online came to less than £13.  Needless to say, we passed on the popcorn, the huge paper cups of Coke and the assorted other items of junk food which we on offer in the foyer.  A reasonable treat for Mothering Sunday, even if it was a week late!