The Giver doesn’t seem entirely consistent about its own rules and races far too quickly to a thoroughly unsatisfactory conclusion that raises three questions for each answer it provides.

Richard Roeper

Chicago Sun-Times

What's so unfunny about peace, love and understanding? Plenty, it turns out. But for much of the movie, viewers will be asking themselves where the conflict is. And, by extension, the drama.

John Anderson

Wall Street Journal

The Giver is at its best when Bridges expounds on civilization’s lost beauty and savagery; at other times, it’s strewn with implausibility: For a totalitarian society in which everyone is monitored constantly, our hero is able to sneak around an awful lot.

Sara Stewart

New York Post