Fans of Lois Lowry's bestselling dystopian young adult novel, The Giver, were, well, given quite a gift this morning in the form of a trailer for the highly anticipated movie adaptation.
Having debuted on Wednesday's Today, the short preview opens up with a voiceover by Meryl Streep's Chief Elder.
"From great suffering, great pain came a solution: communities where disorder became harmony," she says.
But as Jeff Bridges, who plays The Giver, tells Brenton Thwaites' Jonas, the person chosen to be his society's next Receiver of Memory: "The way things look and the way things are are very different."
The plot centers around Jonas, who lives in a seemingly harmonious society in which all pain and suffering have been eliminated in favor of "Sameness," resulting in a world of conformity and contentment, but also one of suppressed emotions.
When Jonas is tapped for the life assignment as the Receiver of Memory, he meets the previous receiver, aka The Giver, who gives him the power of knowledge, including dark secrets contained within his engineered utopia. Jonas is now faced with a decision: Does he stay in this shallow, terrifying community, or run away to the real world and face uncertain danger?
Directed by Phillip Noyce, the film also stars Katie Holmes, Alexander Skarsgård and Taylor Swift, who appears so briefly in this trailer, that if you blink, you'll definitely miss her.
The Giver hits theaters on Aug. 15.
(E! and Today are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)