Divergent (2014)
- To accurately portray their role in Divergent, Shailene Woodley spent weeks conducting hands-on research and rehearsing directly with director Neil Burger.
- Despite initial studio skepticism, Divergent went on to gross over $288,900,000 worldwide.
Divergent is a 2014 American dystopian science fiction action film directed by Neil Burger, based on Veronica Roth's bestselling 2011 novel. Set in a future Chicago where society is divided into five factions based on personality traits — Abnegation (selfless), Amity (peaceful), Candor (honest), Dauntless (brave), and Erudite (intelligent) — the film follows Beatrice "Tris" Prior, played by Shailene Woodley, who discovers during her faction aptitude test that she is "Divergent," meaning she doesn't fit neatly into any single category. Choosing to leave her family's Abnegation faction for the physically demanding Dauntless, Tris must survive a brutal initiation process while hiding her Divergent nature, which threatens the power structure maintained by the Erudite faction's leader Jeanine Matthews, played by Kate Winslet.
Divergent arrived at the peak of the young adult dystopian adaptation wave launched by The Hunger Games, and while it drew inevitable comparisons, the film carved its own identity through its focus on identity, conformity, and the danger of systems that reduce people to a single defining trait. Shailene Woodley brought an understated naturalism to Tris that distinguished her from the more archetypal heroines of competing franchises. Theo James as the mysterious instructor Four provided the requisite romantic chemistry.
The film earned $288 million worldwide on a $85 million budget, launching a franchise that would include two sequels, though the series experienced declining commercial and critical returns with each subsequent installment.
