The Hunger Games: The Movie

[Warning: Spoilers ahead for both the Hunger Games movie and book. Please don’t continue if you haven’t read and watched it, and read with caution if you’ve only read the book and haven’t yet seen the movie.]

My family just got back from a week in the Dominican. When my husband booked the trip, he announced at dinner that he booked it for March 23. My brow furrowed, and I said, “Something is happening on March 23.” He looked at me, stunned… this is the guy who NEVER looks at a calendar before booking things, and is constantly double-booking everything he does. (Half my DVD collection is probably “I’m sorry” gifts from when he’s booked golf travel pieces – he’s a golf writer – on special occasions. Other women want roses or jewelry; he knows the way to my heart is a DVD box set. Ha!)

“No, nothing’s on the 23rd!” he cried. “I actually CHECKED for once.”

“It’s weird… it just feels to me like something is on that date.” I kept eating... could it be that I just constantly have Hurley's numbers in my head, and any mention of 23 has me saying, "Why, that date is IMPORTANT!" About five minutes later sat back in my chair. “Ah! It’s the opening of The Hunger Games!!!!” He stopped, fork midway to his mouth, closed his mouth, tilted his head, and said, “Really? Really, you save that information in your head?”

“Look, you save every baseball stat in your head since the early 1930s. Let me save important release dates for films and TV shows in mine.”

Ahem.

So, as our plane rose into the air, I knew that everyone at my work was heading to the film that night (having bought tickets in advance) and I’d be missing it. Ah well, maybe we’ll figure out a way to get babysitting the weekend we return, and we’ll get to see it. And we did.

So, off we went to see the movie yesterday. I originally discovered The Hunger Games when a friend of mine mentioned her teenage son was reading the books. The second book had just come out, and she said to me, “Have you heard of this?” No, I hadn’t. “You should read them; they’re fantastic. My son has read them several times.” So I did. And then, unlike the majority of adult readers of the series, had to WAIT for Mockingjay to come out because I’d started reading just as the second one was released. I loved the first book, and thought the second book was even better. (The clock set? Brilliant.) The third book was a bit of a letdown, but the epilogue was great, and really brought things around, for me.

My husband, despite calling me the family geek, has a sci-fi streak in him as well, and I told him these weren’t Y/A novels like Twilight; in fact, I’m surprised so many really young kids are reading them. (Just my opinion – every parent is entitled to their own decision based on the maturity of their kids – but I think I’d recommend them to my daughter when she’s about 12 or 13, but not younger than that. But she’s an extremely sensitive girl who cries if she finds a dead butterfly on the ground, so these books are probably a little harrowing for her.) By the way, I could write an entire blog post about this, but while the jury may be out on whether 10 is too young, I don't think many people would think 4 is the proper age, yet the theatre we went to was FULL of children who should have been seeing the Lorax (I saw as young as 18 months, a few around 3 and 4, and lots of ages 5-8), and I thought that was awful. Right. I'm sure your kid in grade 2 will totally get all of the subtle political satire. And won't have any scary nightmares about Rue yanking that spear out of her chest.

Anyway, I talked my husband into reading the first one, which he did in one afternoon (damn him for his fast reading! What I’d give…) And then he devoured the next two. He loved all three of them, and the third one more than I did, I think.

And so, despite his snarkiness, he was pumped to see this movie as much as I was. Kids were off at playdates, and we went to the movie. And then, as we left, he said, “So? What did you think?” And for the first time, I had to pause a long time before I could come up with a proper – and qualified – response. As a movie on its own – not as an adaptation – I thought it was interesting. If I hadn’t read the books, I think I’d definitely have a sense of the political turmoil that surrounds the Hunger Games, I’d know the lead-up, I’d have a sense of who Katniss was, and I would know at the end of the film that there was definitely a second one coming.

But, as someone who’d read the book – and this could actually be a testament to Suzanne Collins’ ability to describe everything to a T – there were times where I found myself a little bored. Bored because I knew what was happening next; very little was surprising or changed from the book (but there were subtle differences). Now, I wasn’t bored the whole time, obviously, and by the end of the movie I realized there are ways the movie functions on its own that are more effective than the book. I’ll get to that in a minute. The sets were stunning, and it was like the set designer reached right into my head and pulled out EXACTLY how I’d pictured things – well, most things – and put them right up on that screen. But that could have been part of the reason I felt it lagged a bit at parts.

What I loved:
• I know there were a lot of haters, but I was thrilled with the casting of Jennifer Lawrence when I heard about it (having been a huge fan of her work in Winter’s Bone… and seriously, does that woman have to cook and eat a squirrel in every movie she’s in?) and my conviction was rewarded in this. I thought she was a fabulous Katniss.
• The Reaping. Even though I knew exactly what was going to happen, I felt my hands start to sweat and imagined myself as every child standing there, not breathing, waiting for his or her name to be called. That scene was absolutely terrifying (and Elizabeth Banks was wonderful in her constantly clueless, perky, annoying way).
• Rue. She was exactly as I pictured, from her eyes to her tiny stature, to her sweet, mousy little ways. The scene of her covered in the flowers was lovely and heartbreaking. (I read an article recently that talked about how fans were upset with the casting of Rue and Cinna, because neither one of them was black in the book, and I was shocked. People really need to learn how to READ and not skim their books, because both of them were clearly described as having darker features. Rue was perfectly cast.)
• Speaking of Cinna, my husband thought Lenny Kravitz was miscast, because he thought Cinna was much younger and more effeminate, but I kind of liked him. I thought he looked much younger than his 50 years, and he played Cinna as someone whose sexuality was unclear, but unlike the Cinna of the book, who gave in to the flamboyant looks of the Capitol, this Cinna is more rebellious, preferring to dress in only blacks and have a bit of eyeshadow on his lids.
• The set, as I mentioned. From the clearing to the trees and water, I thought it was perfect.
• The Capitol, and the crazy fashions and styles of the people living in it. Again, from the bright colours to the insane styles and doll-like makeup and dandyesque quality to everything, it was almost exactly as Collins had described it.
• The outfits on fire. I had no idea how they were going to execute it, and I thought it was WONDERFUL.

A lot of the book was left out, obviously. Where Collins spent pages describing the fashions of the people in the Capitol, a simple sweep of the audience in the movie covered that off, so they gained ground there. But you don’t see a lot of District 12, or get a sense of how important Katniss and Gale are to the rest of the town. Speaking of Gale, he’s a very minor character in the film, with only a handful of lines and appearances.

I remember the sadness of Katniss lying strapped to her tree and watching the skies each night for the In Memoriam of each person who’d died that day, but I’m thinking they just showed it once to let you know it happened, and didn’t harp on it repeatedly. I really did love the music they used for that the first time, and the tunes that both Rue and Katniss whistled for the mockingjays.

Now, I’ll admit, I’ve read the book only once, and that was two or three years ago, but I remember the mockingjays playing a much bigger role. I believe you could talk around them and they’d mimic what you said, and you could hear what other people said, not just sang (am I remembering that correctly?) {UPDATE: Dusk just pointed out in the comments that I'm mixing up the mockingjays with the jabberjays. Thanks, Dusk!!} Also, I pictured the tracker-jackers being bigger and more mechanical-looking (my husband thought exactly the same thing) and these just looked like bees. And partway through the film, I suddenly realized, “They’re not going to do the hybrid dogs. If they do the wild dogs at all, they’re not going to have the faces of the fallen.” Sure enough, they were just wild dogs. Having the faces of Rue and Foxface in the book was far, far creepier.

And other parts of the movie were entirely new. I barely remember the game-maker in the book; I’m sure he’s there and he just didn’t stick out in my mind, but Wes Bentley has a much bigger role than I remember that guy having in the book. (And I couldn’t take my eyes off his curlicue beard; that was fantastic – I was delighted to see Bentley in a major role again, by the way; I think he's a very underrated actor.) In the second book (SPOILER) the arena is manipulated more obviously by the game-makers. But in the first book I don’t remember them doing too much to the actual place; where Wes’s character says, “Make a tree fall” and someone sweeps their hand to do it, I don’t remember that happening in the book at all. Perhaps I’m either not remembering properly, or Collins created a more controlled environment in book 2 and wished she’d done it in book 1, so this screenplay allowed her to do that. But watching this woman create the wild dogs on the computer, then raise them with a flick of her hand and send them on out to the playing board, was cool to watch, even if it didn’t feel true to the book. It was something new that captured my attention.

But here’s the thing: Watching the movie was an entirely different experience than reading the book. While the plot itself was the same – hence the moments where it almost seemed to lag, whereas the book never stopped for an instant – the experience was different. Here’s what I mean: When I read The Hunger Games, I was reading this politically charged satire of a world gone wrong, a world controlled by a heavily top-down government that is so awful the only way it gives the people hope is by massacring their children. But when I was watching the movie, I suddenly had a terrible feeling wash over me partway through: I just paid money to watch children massacre each other. I am complicit. I am one of those people watching the 74th Annual Hunger Games on the screen.

As a result, I felt uneasy for the second half of the movie, which takes place in the arena. The book was heavily detailed, where every battle lasted several pages and every facet of every death was described, and it only occurred to me after I’d finished the series that there were parts of the books where you’re rooting for Katniss (obviously) over other children… but they were children. We shouldn’t be rooting for anyone, which was what Collins was trying to tell us. But when the books tell us the perspective of the characters and get into their heads and make them come off like little adults, you sometimes lose perspective that even if they were trained in some military from infancy and volunteered, that doesn’t make them heinous; they’re still being thrown to the slaughter, regardless of how well trained they are.

But the movie brought all of this home. When the little boy with the big curly hair is lying motionless at the Cornucopia at the very beginning, I imagined myself being his mother and watching that on the screen. As Rue giggled and conspired with Katniss, I realized she was about the same size as my daughter, and I saw my daughter’s laugh and eyes in her. As Katniss sat over her, singing her to her death, again I imagined Rue’s mother watching with horror that her daughter had just died, but having some relief that she didn’t die alone, that Katniss had been there.

So ultimately, I think both the movie and the book work extremely well, but for different reasons. The books explain the background much better, and give you a sense of the despicable politics and world that could allow something like this to happen. They instill in the reader the anger that Katniss has within her to keep her going, and you want to see her show up the Capitol, and cheer when she and Peeta manage to do it at the end.

But the movie brings home the reality of the Hunger Games. These are children killing other children, and it’s wrong on many, many levels, in a way that really hits home and makes you angry through your tears. The Hunger Games are not about hope, despite the bullshit that President Snow spouts. They are entirely about control and a reminder of what the Capitol could do to you should you step out of line. As you watch that movie, you become a mother to every child that falls, even Cato, who at the last moment stands with his hands about to break Peeta’s neck, crying that he knew he was dead the whole time.

My immediate reaction upon finishing the movie was that I’d recommend the books to people over the movie. But upon reflection, I think it’s worth going to see the movie in addition to the book just to get a slightly different perspective in the movie. When you read it, you’re above the situation, shaking your head in disgust at this culture. But when you watch the movie, you become complicit, paying for your ticket and watching children kill each other, thankful that it’s not happening to you. In that sense, this is one of the most fascinating and unexpected adaptations I’ve seen.

I’d be interested to hear from people who saw the movie but didn’t read the books first. Everyone I know who went had also read the books, but if you didn’t and saw the movie, please leave a comment and tell me what you think. And for everyone else, I’d love to hear what you thought of the movie as an adaptation, and whether your experience of watching the movie rather than reading the book was similar to mine or completely different.