I’ll take Hunger Games
over Twilight any day of the week. They’re
different films, you say? Hardly.
Both were originally books that were aimed at impressionable
young people but embraced by the masses. Both have a hesitant young woman being
lusted after by two different sets of boys (Team Edward and Team Jacob versus
Team Peeta and Team Gail). And both films take place in the woods, where the
characters gaze longingly into the leave-shrouded horizon and comprehend all
that they are, or aren’t.
The one difference here is that stuff actually happens in The Hunger Games. Stuff like murder. And
love. And then more murder. This might be the most violent PG-13 movie ever marketed
directly to young people. Adults and their R-rated films will shrug it off, but
then … oh damn, is that a spear impaled in the chest of a 12-year-old?!? Yikes.
Yes, folks, The Hunger
Games is about children killing other children. Oh the depths of the human
condition to which we’ve plunged. This just proves how wacky the Motion Picture
Association of America’s ratings system has become: kids killing kids with
archery sets and blunt instruments is totally acceptable for families, but one peeking
nipple and you have to get a sitter. It doesn’t make any sense.
I question a lot of the intentions and morals (and yes, the
rating) of a movie like The Hunger Games,
but let me say clearly right here: I truly enjoyed this film. It is a well-made
adventure and, though it may wander from its satirical edge, it is a
provocative idea wrapped inside a genuinely thrilling story.
The film is based on Suzanne Collins’ mega-sensation The Hunger Games, the first book of a
trilogy. For those who obsess over the minor trivia and whether they “did the
book justice,” the film is a loyal adaptation of the book. But if you’ve read
my reviews over the years, then you know I could care less; the books and the
movies are separate entities entirely and should be judged on their own merits.
The story is part post-apocalyptic fiction and part dystopian reality
show. In the distant future, North America was
brought to a civil war that was eventually won by the Capitol, an advanced
hedonistic society that enslaved the defeated soldiers and their families in 12
slum-like districts, or states. Every year, as a reminder of the war and as
punishment for its waging, the Capitol selects a boy and girl between the ages
of 12 and 18 from each district to fight to the death in a large outdoor arena.
Twenty-four teens walk in, only one walks out. Every moment of the Hunger Games
is televised so all can see the sacrifice that the Capitol demands. Most people,
especially the neon-doused fashion rejects from the Capitol, watch it seemingly
unaware that real lives are being extinguished.
This year is the 74th annual Hunger Games and Katniss Everdeen’s
sister is chosen, by lottery, to compete for their district. Katniss (Winter’s Bone star Jennifer Lawrence), a
natural game hunter and loving big sister, volunteers in her place, the first
time that’s happened in their poor coal-mining district. Katniss and her male
counterpart from District 12, the baker’s son Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson),
are whisked off to the Capitol, where they are hustled from one pre-game event
to another.
It’s a grueling process: Katniss is primped and manicured by her
stylist, a macho and makeup’d Lenny Kravitz; she’s interviewed on TV by Stanley
Tucci wearing a blue beehive in his hair; she’s given weapons and survival
training; she plots tactics with a past District 12 champion, a drunk played by
Woody Harrelson whose face is shrouded on either side by curtains of hair; and
then finally the tributes are taken before the president, a bearded and
Downy-soft Donald Sutherland who presides over the whole affair with a sinister
eye.
It was around this point I noticed the worst element of the
picture: the shaky camera work. The whole movie clatters and shakes, as if the
camera were a spectator in the crowd frantically roller skating over popcorn
seeds. I hate this effect in this movie, and in most movies. Hollywood
The film spends a vast amount of time building up to the actual
Hunger Games, and by the time the murdering starts the build-up must have
worked because it all feels so justifiably thrilling. Katniss stands in this
glass tube that will eventually raise her to the arena, and the film is alive
with electricity. This is a feat — the act of giving substantial weight to
events happening on the screen — that director Gary Ross (Seabiscuit, Pleasantville)
will repeat several times in the course of events. Most importantly, though, he
seems to have a great understanding of Katniss, who he frames heroically as her
methodical survival instincts kick in.
Much of the credit must also go to Lawrence, who manages to make
Katniss equal amounts stubborn and likeable. I would have liked to hear more of
her internal monologue — her thoughts, her fears, her hesitation with trusting
people — contextualized within the film more, but that’s only a small
complaint. Surely, facing a 96-percent chance of death would have made her
ponder her fate more than this.
Once in the arena, Katniss darts off into the woods while the
other tributes massacre each other to claim a stockpile of weapons and food. At
times she tethers herself high into a tree, where she can hear other tributes
make and break alliances down below. Now and again the television aspect of the
games is revealed through hidden cameras in trees, talking commentators and the
head gamemaker, who controls the trap-laden arena from a Truman Show-like control room.
And since I mention Truman
Show, now there’s a film that understood what it was about. It never
stuttered, never faltered, never even blinked when it came to telling its
satire-wrapped story. I don’t think Hunger
Games has that clarity yet. It deals with too many ideas: murder as
entertainment, reality TV, the great gap between rich and poor, the corruption
of power, dystopian fascism and the terminal loss of innocence. Yet in the end,
with so many options to choose from, The
Hunger Games is nothing more than an adventure tale. It doesn’t say
anything grand, or make any spectacular declarations. It just exists as a
vehicle for Katniss, the series’ heroine. That’s a shame, because it has the
potential to be so much more.
Last week I looked at the films and books that might have
inspired The Hunger Games. I spent a
lot of time on films like Running Man
and Battle Royale. The one I should
have looked more into was William Golding’s Lord
of the Flies. Watching Hunger Games
I could not shake the image from Golding’s book, of Piggy being crushed by the
rock. That single act in the book shattered so much that we take for granted.
Here’s a film with 23 potential Piggy moments, yet only one of them seems to
rise to the occasion. The Hunger Games,
while it may be a good film, needs to find its center. Maybe the next film will
do that.
In the meantime, though, this first one is a great start.
