Hunger Games review

I left Hunger Games really liking it. There were some things that were slimmed down but I felt that not a lot of importance had been omitted. The main thing I felt was missing was a lack of scale to the nation. Instead of a whole country converted to districts it felt more like a city state with outlying villages, but I wrote that off because that scale doesn’t really enter the books in a meaningful way until the second installment.

But the next day I thought about it and felt that there really is a number of things missing from the movie.

Jennifer Lawrence is really good. I didn’t see Winter’s Bone but found her impressive in X-Men: First Class. Josh Hutcherson as Peeta was good enough, though he doesn’t hold the same “gentle giant” sense that the character has in the book. Here he’s a bit too small and his face too boyish. Perhaps that will make his character all the more shocking in the 3^rd movie but for now the casting choice seems too thin. The rest of the tributes work well enough though none of them are really given much material to work with. Rue essentially has two or three scenes, once of which is simply her hiding in the ceiling. It’s nice that Isabelle Fuhrman from Orphan got a few lines but the rest of Kato’s gang just seem like cruel muscle without any individual characters in there.

But as I said, there is a lot that’s smoothed over to the detriment of this movie. Woody Harrelson’s Hamish is serviceable but there’s no regret or even conflict over his role of mentoring two children in a Thunder Dome situation. He also makes alcoholism recovery look like a breeze.

Another character that is neutered, this one to an even greater extent, is Cinna. He doesn’t come across as calculating or subversive. He is more like a contestant on Project Runway that doesn’t listen to criticism from the judges than a counter-cultural radical as he is in the book. In the movie he’s a sympathetic shoulder and that’s why Katniss takes to him. In the books he makes it his mission to fight the establishment which is why Katniss finds strength in him as an ally.

Finally, there’s portrayal of Katniss’ romantic life. This is probably the most problematic part of the movie for me. The book is in first person which comes with its own set of limitations. For instance, in the books we only find out about District 11’s riot in the second book, long after it happens , because this is when Katniss finds out about it. Seeing it in chronological context in the movie made the seeds of revolution feel like they were planted instead of just being informed of something important later on. The upside of the first person narrative is that there’s no actual romance in the first book. The entire emotional engine of Katniss and Peeta is that she is being completely calculating about the whole thing. She feels nothing for him (yet) and so there’s a tension in their “romance”. Every action she takes to look kind and loving is a lie. The more Peeta keeps true to himself in the arena the more of a show she puts on for survival’s sake. In the film we see none of this and it’s quite possible that their interactions are nothing more than a teenage romance which weakens the very core of Katniss’ character. Gale barely figures into the story at all. In the books he’s a hunting mentor to Katniss; in the movie he simply tags along while she hunts and pines for her while she’s gone. With that dynamic chopped it’s is another layer of Katniss that is thinned out as well.

What bothers me is that in cultural context The Hunger Games is seen as a counter-Twilight series. Instead of the epically passive Bella you get the compartmentalized, driven Katniss. There’s a romance but it is started as an act and takes second place to the heroin’s role in the larger story of revolution. The movie can’t take that role though. While not nearly as socially repugnant as Twilight, there are too many similarities in the movies for it to find similar footing to the books. While not abusive in the same way as Twilight we are still given a couple made up of a pro-active and driven character and a passive, lovesick one (a formula I call the coward's romance since the only obstacles are self-imposed), with a third party looking in without enough emotional importance to truly make a tension filled triangle.

I think a fair way to describe the film is still enjoyable but on reflection perhaps less satisfying. I don’t know whether reading the books has helped or not. Reading them may have made me seen more faults in the movie, or it may have let me imprint emotional depth into it that wasn’t conveyed in the film version alone. I do not know if having read the series was a hindrance or a boon. But I have read them so I know that the world building increases in the subsequent installments and that the emotional connections established here are replaced with different ones so I do have that to look forward to. But part of me wonders if the story would be better served with a director with more vision.

On a scale of -5 to 5 I rate Hunger Games a 3.