REVIEW: Plot differences make Insurgent a success
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–
Set in dystopian Chicago in a fictional world in which society is split into five factions (Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite), Insurgent is the sequel to 2014’s Divergent. Citizens select their factions based on whichever trait they naturally identify with most; however, the protagonist Tris Prior, portrayed by Shailene Woodley is a Divergent, meaning that she belongs to more than one faction.
Although Tris chooses Dauntless in Divergent, Insurgent largely focuses about the importance of Tris’s divergence and the chaos that ensues as the factions turn against each other as the system they had previously lived under starts to crack.
Changing both her physical appearance by cutting her hair and becoming mentally stronger after overcoming the deaths of her parents and her friend Will in Divergent, Woodley excellently portrays Tris as a hardened heroine, who is all too prone to guilt and will eventually give herself up for the greater good, which she does by sacrificing herself to the Erudite, because antagonist and Erudite leader Jeanine Matthews (Kate Winslet) needs a divergent to pass the simulations for all five factions and open a box with a secret message.
This box is the largest plot change from the original novel, but is helpful to viewers to better understand the importance of simulations in Insurgent’s society, as Tris passes tests from all five factions in order to open the box. However, the movie-added box unites with the novel version of Insurgent in the end, because it contains a message sent from the creators of the faction-divided society belying the danger of divergence and instead revealing that there is a world outside of the fence that surrounds the city.
As a result of not having Tris’s first-person narration of events and the significance of the many simulations, the one detriment of the movie is that is sometimes blurs the line between reality and simulated reality, confusing watchers as to when something is being simulated in Tris’s head and when something is actually happening. The major instance of this occurs when Tris passes the Erudite test by realizing that her love interest, Tobias (Four) Eaton, played by Theo James, is not actually with her in her simulated fight with Jeanine
However, when Four is actually with Tris in Insurgent, he acts as a strong calming presence to the sometimes irrational Tris. In comparison to his intimidating and strong persona in Divergent, Four undergoes much emotional development and shows his vulnerable side in Insurgent.
Similarly to Four, Tris also undergoes a large change in Insurgent, and Woodley’s genuine portrayal of Tris and her struggles to be more than one faction, to be selfless, kind, honest, brave and intelligent reminds the audience of the importance of the human characteristics that connect us all, as Insurgent can serve as a cautionary tale of the possible downfall of humankind if we forget the good that humanity shares.
