Actually at the endend of the book the Community receives all of the memories Jonas had after he crosses the boundaryboundary--the Giver stayed behind so he could help them deal with the pain, etc. So that aspect of the movie was the same, we just got to see it happening unlike the book. And while the end was ambiguous as to Jonah's survival, he did in fact survive (he is referred to in the subsequent books, first obliquely, then more outright. And same with Gabe). So that didn't bother me so much either, even though the way it was much better done in the book.

But ugh, what a disappointing film. I mean I expected it to suck, but then the first 20 min or so (or up to the beginnjng of his training) were SO GOOD and near perfect, I began to think it would be all good. But yeah, the shoe-horned romance and the heavy-handed cheesy writing were so bad and cringeworthy, and it really missed some key points (like why they were killing babies, or what the pills were about, etc).

I too was OK with the aging up though, because frankly having kids begin careers at age 12 never really made much sense.