With the airing of the first full-length trailer for “The Hunger Games” this past November, audiences had impatiently awaited its arrival to the big screen. Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic, dystopian novel about 12 starving districts forced by a tyrannical Capitol to send two of its children each year to fight to the death in annual “Hunger Games,” caught more and more people’s attention as the movie neared release. And it doesn’t look like the fervor around the movie is going to let up anytime soon. It’s opening day on Friday, March 23, saw an amazing $68 million dollars.
Prior to the movie’s release, speculation of the blockbuster it would become was rampant. Many referred to it as the next “Twilight,” and saw its potential as a franchise. However, the subject matter of “The Hunger Games,” involving totalitarian control of subjugated districts, and the murder of children by children, gave the movie a lofty challenge: to be faithful to its subject material while appealing to its intended audience, namely young adults.
So, given this challenge, how does the movie measure up?
Directed by Gary Ross, “The Hunger Games” is a faithful adaptation of Collins’ novel, bringing to light many of the tougher elements of her book. The movie is not a blow-by-blow mirror of Collins’ novel, but attempts to display fully the nightmarish horror that is the Hunger Games. With dark, thematic music, setting, and solid acting from all involved, it’s easy to feel that Ross’ vision was successful. However, his representation of this world, while efficiently dark and sinister, may have come at a cost. Fans may feel disconnected from key characters, or that the movie has more of a ‘rushed’ feel than they might have hoped for.
The story begins in District 12, a poor, starving coal-mining district that is rife with despair. We meet Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), who must provide for her family since her mother is uninvolved and her father dead. At the reaping (a lottery ceremony whereby the Capitol ‘selects’ its contestants for the macabre Hunger Games) she volunteers to enter the games when her 12-year-old sister Primrose (Willow Shields) is selected in order to save her life. Another district-member, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) is selected for the lottery and the two are ushered to a train meant to take them to the Capitol. And since District 12 tributes are historically unprepared, and weaker than other districts, both regard it as nothing but a death sentence.
While on the surface Peeta and Katniss appear to be frightened contestants in the Capitol’s sinister Game, they are connected by circumstance. Through flashbacks, we learn that once, while her family was near death from starvation, Peeta, a baker’s son, had thrown a loaf of bread to Katniss, saving her life. While grateful for this, the event sets up a moral dilemma Katniss must now face. Since the annual, televised “games” can only have one winner, she knows that only one of them can come back alive.
The two are quickly whisked to the Capitol, in the company of eccentric lottery-master Effie Trinket (Elizabeth Banks, “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,”) and their reluctant mentor Haymitch Abernathy (Woody Harrelson, “Natural Born Killers”).
It is here that we see the ostentation of the Capitol, and where thematic elements of Collins’ novel are brought to life. Where Katniss can barely feed herself in District 12, now opulent dining rooms filled with feasts beyond her wildest dreams await. Likewise, comments from Effie to not damage a precious mahogany table when Katniss lashes out at Haymitch for being drunk and unhelpful show the spoiled nature of those who have never grasped the desperation felt by the oppressed citizens of the district.
As far as setting goes, the look of the Capitol is well done, with futuristic electronic devices and living quarters intermingled with the wild fashions of Capitol citizens, such as dyed skin and hair, and extravagant tattoos and piercings. Only Cinna seems to appear normal, with gold eyeliner his only adornment.
However splendid the Capitol, there is a decidedly mournful and funereal tone to everything that transpires there – from speeches from Panem’s president Coriolanus Snow, to the sessions where tributes train in the arts of survival and combat, to the lush meals and live television interviews with host Caesar Flickerman. Stanley Tucci, who plays Flickerman, highlights the sinister undertones of the Capitol all too well. While on the surface he is congratulating and encouraging the tributes, it is clear he views them not as equals but as dressed up pieces of meat. During his interview with Peeta Mellark, after he confesses his love for a girl, Flickerman offers “to go out there and win this thing,” to impress her, as if he were talking about winning an Olympic Gold Medal, and not setting out to maliciously annihilate 23 human beings.
However ominous the scenes within the Capitol are, the piece de resistance of the entire film is the actual Hunger Games within an enormous, forested arena. However, in the realization of the events within the arena, the feel that Ross employs is different than might be expected. For instance, the scene at the Cornucopia, a giant, metal horn tributes are meant to run to and fight over precious supplies and weapons, lacks the dramatic treatment suggested in the trailer. Instead, it feels surreal, dreamlike, and filled with quick cuts that don’t give the viewer a clear picture of what is occurring – namely, weaker children being massacred by the larger, ‘Career’ tributes.
Likewise, other scenes, such as Katniss’ brief alliance with 12-year-old tribute Rue and her relationship with Peeta as they struggle to survive, seem cut short, and lack the depth of explanation many hoped would expand upon the book.
However, rather than to be a detriment, this seems a very deliberate move on the part of Gary Ross. The world of the “Hunger Games” is very touchy. The story is literally a nightmare scenario, where children must fight one another, and readily accept being sacrificed without objection. As Ross himself states in an interview, a healthy distance demands to be kept from these events, allowing audiences to view the Games more as a monstrous nightmare than a realistic event.
The tone of this movie makes you feel guilty and almost dirty. When you’re viewing it, specifically the scenes during the actual Games, you feel at unease because of the macabre relationships participants are forced to have. Alliances (such as the brutal careers and even Katniss, Rue, and Peeta) feel mournful and inappropriate. As the game can only have one winner, alliances are temporary, made to be broken at an unspoken time down the road. Watching this unfold is difficult. And while you don’t feel as jaded and morally bankrupt as Capitol audience members, there’s a feeling that something just isn’t right about the whole thing.
One of the strong points of the movie lies with solid acting across the board. Jennifer Lawrence shines as Katniss. Where most of her story was told in the novel through personal monologue, facial acting and tone needed to be used in the movie. Lawrence does this wonderfully throughout the film, but none more powerfully than the scene where she and Cinna embrace before she enters the arena. The fear and lonely terror that she exhibits was one of her best performances in the movie, and is something that was wholly missing from her character in the novel. Additionally, fears that Lawrence was too old for the role (Katniss is 16) don’t measure up. Never, in any scene, does she appear as anything but a terrified, albeit brave girl, fighting for her life against bigger and more brutal contestants.
Donald Sutherland (President Snow) and Wes Bentley (Seneca Crane, Head Gamemaker) also do a superb job of highlighting the evil of the Capitol, explaining the nature of power and how it is specifically used to intimidate and control the districts.
Perhaps the most poignant commentary on the Games occurs at its ending, which would feel rushed if not for this occurrence. Cato (Alexander Ludwig), Career Tribute and the movie’s vicious antagonist, realizes his futile role in the sinister proceedings. “I was never meant to leave the Games alive. I guess I’m just realizing that now.”
On balance, “The Hunger Games” offers a faithful adaptation of Suzanne Collins’ novel, while maintaining much important commentary, such as oppression, tyranny, and a society overly acceptant of violence. It’s not a perfect film. The quick pace of the movie, and the detached way many scenes are portrayed, do subtract from the impact and urgency fans hoped would jump from page to screen. However, this fast-pace and disconnection with the film forces viewers to experience the world of the Hunger Games as we rightly should – from a safe, horrified distance, and not up-close-and-personal as barbaric, bloodthirsty citizens of the Capitol.
— by Mark Ziobro
