Jeanine Matthews: The Erudite Villain of Divergent

Jeanine Matthews is the leader of Erudite, one of the five factions in the walled future Chicago of the Divergent series. The city is divided into five factions based on a single virtue: Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Dauntless and Erudite. Jeanine sits at the top of Erudite, and she uses that standing to challenge Abnegation, the selfless faction that runs the government.

Kate Winslet plays her in Divergent (2014), directed by Neil Burger, and again in Insurgent (2015), directed by Robert Schwentke. In the first film she is billed twelfth, as Jeanine. In the second she moves up to fourth billing and is credited as Jeanine Matthews. Winslet was five months pregnant during the filming of Divergent (2014), according to a report in the Huffington Post UK.

She is the central villain, and she works through public distrust and the Dauntless soldiers and leaders who answer to her. That makes her a different kind of opponent for Tris Prior than the rivals Tris meets during initiation.

Jeanine's power depends on a small circle of allies in Dauntless and Erudite, and her fiercest opposition comes from Tris and the people around her. In Insurgent, Jeanine's Erudite works with the Dauntless leaders Max, played by Mekhi Phifer, and Eric Coulter, played by Jai Courtney. Together they hunt the Divergent and search for someone able to open the box. Eric dies in the escape after Four rescues Tris, so Jeanine loses one of her key enforcers before the end of the film.

Her relationship with Tris is that of hunter and target. Tris is the Divergent whose test results show she can open the box, and Jeanine's whole campaign in the second film bends toward capturing her. Four, played by Theo James, becomes the second thread of opposition, since he is also Divergent and fights to free Tris.

On the other side of Tris's family, Caleb Prior, played by Ansel Elgort, sides with Erudite during Insurgent. Meanwhile Peter Hayes, played by Miles Teller, is a rival who targets Tris during initiation but later helps her fake her death so she can reach the simulation room.

The final opponent is Evelyn Johnson-Eaton, played by Naomi Watts. Evelyn leads the Factionless, who gain power once Jeanine is taken down, and she is the one who ends Jeanine's story. The broader structure of the five groups is covered in our guide to the Divergent factions.

In my opinion, Jeanine is at her most effective when she sits at the Erudite headquarters in Divergent (2014) and watches the attack she has set in motion, because the film lets her stay calm while Dauntless soldiers carry out her orders without knowing it. It could be argued that this is the franchise's strongest idea about power, since the cruelty is done by people who cannot refuse.

The ledge sequence in Insurgent is the second moment I would point to. Jeanine again uses mind control, and it forces Tris to surrender to save Dauntless captives. It is a plain use of the serum from the first film, and a good example of a villain repeating a tool and raising the stakes. Paradoxically, she is more frightening here for doing less.

If you only watch one Jeanine film, perhaps start with Insurgent, since she is in charge of the city, but read the setup in the Divergent movies in order guide first so her motives make sense. Her limit as a character is the same as the series' limit: she is a political schemer more than a person, and Winslet's calm delivery carries a good deal of that weight.