The Hunger Games

It's being hyped as the next Twilight, which is pretty disingenuous because it's not like Twilight at all, but I can understand it from a marketing standpoint. The only thing the two films have in common is the idea of a love triangle, but whereas Twilight makes this it's main plot, The Hunger Games uses it in the way that a salad uses salad dressing. I recently read Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games novels a few months back in anticipation of the popularity explosion, but I couldn't have possibly guessed how big this was all going to be. I'll just say straight off the bat that this is a fantastic movie, and that you don't need to have read the books, blah blah blah, just go see it.

Anyway, the basic premise should be pretty familiar to anyone who has seen Battle Royale, The Running Man, Turkey Shoot, that episode of Buffy, etc, etc. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a 16 year old girl in the future-nation of Panem (some 100-120 years from now). She lives in a poor mining district that pretty much does slave work for a decadent Rome-like capital city. Along with eleven other districts, her district must offer up two 'tributes' every year to battle it out to death on national television. Katniss finds herself competing in these vicious games when she volunteers to take the place of her younger sister.

To fixate on the teens-battling-each-other aspect and inevitable comparisons to Battle Royale is to ignore the fact that this story (and the novels) aren't just about this - it's about the larger world of Panem and ideas relating to reality TV and modern society, and a good half of the film (arguably the better half) isn't about the games at all. Some of the drama was lost for me when they went into the arena, the film kind of stalls a bit because we pretty much know what to expect from this point on. I love how they did a whole 1930s dustbowl/futuristic art deco thing with Panem, it gave the film an original look (and it fits with the casting of Jennifer Lawrence, calling to mind her brilliant break-out role in Winter's Bone... though this is most likely entirely coincidental).

I found the shaky cam stuff a little irritating at first but I stopped noticing it after the first five or ten minutes because everything about The Hunger Games is so incredibly engaging. The characters are all so perfectly cast, and Katniss is such a strong heroine. She never falls into the trap of annoying whininess, and Lawrence is such an all-round great actress that she simply is Katniss Everdeen for me (as opposed to one actress' interpretation of the character). I suspect the shaky cam stuff was mainly used just to cover up a lot of the violence... it always seemed to be at its most shaky in the most violent sequences (the riot, the start of the games, etc), and I think this sort of in-film censoring is far better than cutting out the violence altogether.

My only real criticism is that I thought Woody Harrelson should've been a bit gruffer as the mento-character Haymitch. He seemed to be going for a slightly fey vibe, which I guess fits with the fashion of Panem's futuristic denizens, but it just didn't work for me. It's a small criticism, but I just felt a bit disappointed because Harrelson would've nailed it if he wasn't too concerned with broadening his range. Donald Sutherland isn't how I pictured President Snow in my head, but he still fit the role rather well - combining stately dignity and cold menace rather effortlessly. The other main standout in the cast is Josh Hutcherson as the honest-faced Peeta Mellark... Hutcherson has been doing great but mostly unrecognised work in a variety of films throughout his teen years (Bridge to Terabithia, Zathura, Cirque du Freak) and it's nice to know that he's probably about to achieve superstardom.

Anyway, as I said at the start of this review, I thought this film was fantastic. It's very faithful to the book, but also completely faithful to the medium of film (I'm glad they broke free from having it all from Katniss' perspective). Most importantly the script, director and actors all capture the bravery of the novel. Despite knowing what was going to happen I really got swept up in a few of the 'bigger' moments, and I think nailing the 'feel' of a text like this is what truly makes this film a winning adaptation. I think this might just be the best of all the film adaptations of teen novels from over the last ten years or more. It's certainly better than the first couple of Harry Potter films. It's a perfect film version of a great book, and it also happens to be an artistically accomplished film in its own right as well. Go see it!

DIRECTOR: Gary Ross
WRITER/SOURCE: Gary Ross, Suzanne Collins and Billy Ray. Based on the novel by Suzanne Collins.
KEY ACTORS: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Liam Hemsworth, Donald Sutherland, Wes Bentley, Stanley Tucci, Toby Jones, Alexander Ludwig, Isabelle Fuhrman.

RELATED TEXTS:
- The novel The Hunger Games, and it's sequels Catching Fire and Mockingjay, all by Suzanne Collins.
- The idea of humans hunting each other originates in the 1920s short story The Most Dangerous Game.
- Other films that have used this idea include: Turkey Shoot, The Running Man, Battle Royale, Series 7: The Contenders and The Condemned.