I find this whole post-apocalyptic young adult movement – both the books and their movies – fascinating and troubling. On the positive side, these authors are actually writing interesting stories, with life-sized heroes and heroines, exciting plots, and complex and dark sociopolitical ideas. How can we complain, compared to the current mindless dreck coming out of Hollywood, or the empty, pretentious crap that dominates the indie scene? On the other hand, the sociopolitical ideas are really only developed toward supporting viscerally exciting action sequences, and since these stories are told from the perspective of children, they tend to adopt a somewhat caricatural view of adults and the adult world. So, on one hand these stories are fun and entertaining in a way that most action films aren’t, and on the other they are squandering artistic material, ideas, energy, and social outreach (millions watch these movies) for rather limited, largely financial, objectives.

Consider Divergent. It’s an entertaining story, a bit long perhaps, but entertaining. Divergent tackles the idea of human deviation from the norm in the context of a post-war society that has all people permanently slotted into one of five role-based factions – “brave” people (soldiers), “brains” (techies and scientist types), “peaceful” people (who are basically agricultural workers), “honest” people (it’s not clear what they do), and “selfless” people, who run the government. Like The Hunger Games, when children reach a certain age, society impresses itself on them, here giving them some crazy, drug-induced mental test that tells them what role they’re suited for, and they are torn from their birth families, which are replaced by the mechanized, abstract social families formed by the five factions. The main character (Shailene Woodley) finds out she’s among the tiny minority of humanity that doesn’t fit in any one group, an affliction known as “divergent”, and this causes trouble.

So here we have an elaborate and seemingly rich set-up, with all kinds of human themes available for potential exploration. But there is a slapdash quality to it all, and a glaring lack of depth in all areas. Its story ideas seem interesting, but they’re half-baked, and lead in rather prosaic, uninspiring directions. Character development is surprisingly shallow, given the amount of time devoted to it. Pacing is uneven – the “character scenes” are slow, simplistic, and marred by a certain juvenility, and then once the main storyline engages, the narrative races forward with alacrity, kind of like that Ashley Judd TV show Missing, mowing through ideas and plot points so fast the story starts to feel a bit like a blurred outline. The treatment of the film’s “science” is embarrassingly perfunctory. And most disappointing of all, the movie really has nothing to say about individuality, non-conformity, or human deviation from society’s norm. Sadly, “divergence” is in the end merely a technical plot contrivance – “divergent” individuals are only special because they are resistant to the crazy brain drugs that are inflicted on people throughout the movie.

As for the film’s human themes, they’re unsettling, and not in a good way. At least The Hunger Games had a theme that was clearly relevant to our current society: an isolated and neutered general population existing solely to support the elite sector’s lives of fabulous wealth and privilege. But how are we supposed to relate to the world of Divergent? There’s a foul, Christian / Tea-Party / Militiaman sentimentality here: the idea that politicians and government are evil, the idea that intellectuals are evil, the idea that the nuclear family is being destroyed by government social engineering, the idea that soldiers are the apex of human society, and the viewing of people as overly-simplistic moral types; either “smart” or “truthful”, but not both; “peaceful” or “fearless”, but not both. This worldview does not ring true to me in any way, and frankly smacks of the warped delusions of ignorant, hyper-reactionary elements within the American political spectrum. I could sort of see our world winding up like The Hunger Games, but I can’t see it ever winding up like Divergent, simply because it’s not based on an accurate and truthful understanding of human beings or human society.

So in the end, what can one say? Shailene Woodley makes an warm, appealing heroine, and Theo James (who will forever be the dude who died in Lady Mary’s bed) makes a good-looking hunk-a-junk for her to lust after. The story is diverting enough in the moment, but afterwards it strikes you as something dreamed up in an afternoon, with very limited goals in mind – to sell things to young girls who read, and to create another Katniss-type role in which to market some cute, appealing young starlet, in service of a blockbuster film franchise.