In the future, after a second civil war, most reading in America is confined to the Internet, called "the 9," and most books are banned. Books are ordered to be burned by the "firemen", who are part of the Ministry, an authoritarian dictatorship that blames unhappiness, mental illness, and conflicting opinions on reading the "wrong" literature. Guy Montag, a fireman living in Cleveland, goes about his work without question, believing that by following in his captain's footsteps he is serving and protecting society. All this changes when he meets an informant named Clarisse, who makes him challenge his actions and convictions by sharing with him some of the real history of America and the rise of the Ministry. When he finally decides to rebel and understand how the "Eels" read, he comes to a realization—he now wants to read as well. Montag decides to help a rebel who has a plan to reproduce their information through animals. This rebel group encoded books into a bird's DNA so that it can live on and survive the efforts of the firemen. Montag was supposed to steal a transponder from the fire department in order to attach it to the bird so that it can be located by a group of scientists who will transfer the DNA to other animals. After Montag steals the transponder, Beatty goes to him and confirms his intentions whether Montag wants to burn books. The firemen go to Montag's house and find a large stash of planted books. On Beatty's orders he starts burning the stash. Montag remembers that Captain Beatty was among the group of firemen who beat up his father for being an Eel and suddenly becomes rebellious and immediately stops burning the books. Montag is confronted by Captain Beatty who erases his identity. After burning alive a fireman, he finds himself on the run, eventually connecting with the group of Eels. The Eels' house is discovered by the firemen; Montag finds the bird and places a transponder inside it so that it can find its way to scientists in Canada. Captain Beatty confronts him and attempts to stop him, but allows the bird to fly away. After Montag releases the bird, Beatty burns him alive in a fit of rage. The starling makes it to Canada, and joins with an immense flock of other starlings.
had been developing an adaptation of Bradbury's novel as early as June 2016. In April 2017, Michael Shannon and Michael B. Jordan were cast in the film, with Jordan also assuming an executive producer role. In June, Sofia Boutella became attached to the project, YouTube personality Lilly Singh was cast as a vlogger, and Laura Harrier was cast as Millie, Montag's wife, though she was ultimately cut from the film. Filming began in July 2017, with the additions of Martin Donovan, Andy McQueen and Grace Lynn Kung to the cast in August.
Release
On January 11, 2018, HBO's Twitter account released a trailer for the film, featuring the tagline, "Fact. Fiction. It all burns." The film was released on May 19, 2018, after premiering at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on September 18, 2018.
Reception
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 32% based on 74 reviews, and an average rating of 5/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Fahrenheit 451 fails to burn as brightly as its classic source material, opting for slickly mundane smoke-blowing over hard-hitting topical edge." On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a score of 47 out of 100, based on 19 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". For IndieWire, Ben Travers gave the film a grade of "C+", writing that "Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon make for a compelling pair in an aptly modernized update that still feels far too conventional." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter praised the production value but wrote that "as disturbing as the forecast for American life and politics may be in Fahrenheit 451, this wrinkle nonetheless serves to seriously diminish the absoluteneed to preserve texts when they're known to still exist elsewhere; when America gets its head on straight again, there is backup to resupply the intellectually deprived." In his review for RogerEbert.com, Odie Henderson noted the steering of Bradbury's ideas into the factual realm, drawing parallels with the satirical direction of Network being weakened by the evolution of television, adding that "much of the novel's shock value and allegorical power also feels weakened as a result." IGN's Matt Fowler wrote that the film "features strong performances and a dancing, flickering visual flare, but all that's not enough to cover up the clunkiness of the script and the strain of reconfiguring this always relevant-yet still very 1950s-story to fit within our 2018 specifics". Entertainment Weeklys Darren Franich wrote that the film "has its heart in the right place, but its head sure crawled up somewhere."
