By Stacey Wells ‘15

Fans expected the recently released movie “Divergent” to be a ground-breaking film. Many hoped that it would surpass other trilogies, like “The Hunger Games.” Unfortunately, these predictions were unwarranted and far from the truth.

“Divergent,” a novel written by Veronica Roth, depicts a society where there are five factions: Erudite, Candor, Abnegation, Amity and Dauntless. Each citizen chooses their desired faction when they’re 16 years old and obeys the motto “faction before blood.” Those who do not conform into any category are called Divergent and are considered a threat to the faction system.

The dystopian film follows a teenage girl, Tris Prior (Shailene Woodley), who discovers her divergence. Despite that, she picks Dauntless, where she meets her instructor and love interest, Four (Theo James). Tris must learn how to navigate through a new, dangerous faction and eventually deal with an attempted revolution. Despite all of the heart-pounding action depicted in the book, the movie begins extremely slowly in an attempt to dramatize Tris’ choice of faction. While wondering when the actual story will begin, it makes one think of the similarly drawn-out snooze during the exposition of “The Hunger Games.” Once Tris finally chooses Dauntless, the movie thankfully begins to pick up speed.

Disappointingly, as the movie begins to move along, major events from the book are overlooked. It would be impossible to include every detail from a nearly  500 page book into a two and a half hour film, but it is disappointing how much information is left out and even misrepresented. The novel’s thrilling tale was one of the main reasons why the movie was produced. By removing many of the central elements, the movie offends the original lovers of the book and ruins the magic of the story. Edward, who is an extremely important character in the book series, is briefly mentioned once, but no actor is ever seen. The wrong character grabs the flag in the all-important capture-the-flag game and Four teaches Tris how to appear Dauntless instead of Divergent in the simulations, which never even occurs in the novel. The most offensive misrepresentation of the book is when Tris kills her family in a simulation instead of killing herself. In the novel, her self-sacrifice is a crucial step in her character development, since her choice affects other decisions later in the series.

Despite the upsetting changes and flawed storyline, the actors perform quite well. Shailene Woodley does an above average job playing the main character. Her only major flaw was when she attempted to look threatening; she sometimes appeared slightly constipated. Miles Teller, who plays Tris’ enemy, a vile boy named Peter, acts out his part extraordinarily, milking his role as a villain and truly morphing into Peter. Furthermore, the various shots of war-ravaged Chicago are breathtaking, which makes the dystopian society come to life. Unfortunately, the movie’s impressive cinematography and acting cannot fully save the film from its major flaws.