Back Rowe Reviews
Real Time Movie Reviews from the Back Row of a Theater

The Hunger Games (PG-13)

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Directed by: Gary Ross
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence
March 2012

Based on Suzanne Collins’ wildly popular teen novel trilogy and directed by Gary Ross, (
Seabiscuit), The Hunger Games is one of the most highly anticipated films of the year, superheroes notwithstanding. Starring Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) and bolstered by a dazzling array of supporting talent nearly as scintillating as the dress Katniss (Lawrence) wears during the opening ceremonies of the Games, the film posits a disconcerting dystopian “what if.” What if two teenage tributes from each of twelve districts competed, to the death, in order to secure glory for the victor and more importantly, a lifetime of comfort and security for the winner’s family? Oh, and most alarmingly, the events of the game are broadcast live on Panem’s version of television for the viewing pleasure of the masses. Profits are earned from ratings and/or wagers placed on contestants. Consider it a reality show taken to the most unethical and macabre extents imaginable. But not to worry, if the global economic recession continues intensifying the way it has over the last few years, our own version of the Hunger Games will be airing on network TV this upcoming fall. Check your local listings.

The narrative love child of
Lord of the Flies and The Most Dangerous Game, The Hunger Games is a highly entertaining, yet deeply disturbing, cautionary tale. The film’s most insidious and controversial attribute is its uncanny ability to coax its audience into reveling in the systematic slaughter of teens. An underlying thesis in many of Alfred Hitchcock’s movies is that all film spectatorship is inherently voyeuristic (Hitch takes this notion to its furthest extreme in his 1954 masterwork, Rear Window). If such a theory is true, then the wholesale massacre that ensues during this film’s action passages makes the audience complicit in its atrocities. To decry the teen violence in the film is one thing (which begs the question of why such protesting individuals are watching this film in the first place), but what if these scenes of imperilment and mutilation are actually enjoyable to a certain segment of the audience? Does that automatically make them psychopaths? Is it wrong to cheer when the “good” teens triumph over the “bad” teens? I mean, it’s one thing to watch adults poking holes in other adults (or aliens, robots, etc) with bullets, knives or laser beams, but it’s something entirely different to showcase teenagers slaying one another. Such is the moral minefield inherent in this seemingly straightforward survival story. But at the end of the day (or film) it’s all just entertainment, right?

The first twenty minutes of
The Hunger Games contains more complexity than the entire Twilight saga. Even though both trilogies were written for a teenage readership, Collins’ The Hunger Games deals with weighty ethical and societal issues, while Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books focus on teen angst, a love triangle and an ancient struggle between vampires and werewolves. Both movies open with a deer being stalked in the forest but the two story lines quickly and radically diverge from that point.

The dystopian mood and aesthetic is evident throughout the film, but is nowhere more apparent than in the city sequences…let’s face it, a forest is a forest, whether it’s the one just beyond District 12 or the CG forest created for the Games inside a dome,
a la Star Trek’s holodeck. The soldiers employed for crowd control in District 12 during the reaping, adorned in white uniforms with white bike helmets, recall any number of futuristic enforcers, like the ones seen in THX 1138 (1971) and Soylent Green (1973). And is it my imagination or do these peacekeepers bear more than just a passing resemblance to the white clad imperial lackeys featured in Spaceballs (1987)?

The role of the command center that controls the conditions of the Games has been expanded in the movie and looks like a mix between an Apple store and the interactive virtual displays used by Tom Cruise in
Minority Report (2002). Other than a modernized train, outlandish clothing, hair and makeup styles, some modern architecture and a nighttime cityscape, there’s little evidence to indicate that these people live in a futuristic, or post-apocalyptic, society. Credit the producers for minimizing costly exterior city shots and making extensive use of interiors and forest exteriors.

Director Ross hews closely to the source material; in fact, it could be argued that save for a few stylistic and narrative tweaks the movie has an almost slavish adherence to the book. In the majority of instances where this occurs a film will suffer greatly in the adaptation from book to screen but here, because Collins’ story is so rich and textured, the film actually benefits by sticking to what works. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” seems to be the overriding philosophy of the filmmaker. It’s hard to argue with the result.

In the book, much of the narrative is driven by Katniss’ internal musings and there are long passages where her thoughts and actions, without a single word of spoken dialog, move the story along toward its fateful climax. One of my major concerns with the adaptation from book to screenplay was that those personal thoughts and feelings would be lost unless a cheesy internal monolog was employed. Would we be able to discern, merely from actions or facial expressions, what was going on in Katniss’ mind? As it turns out, my fears were unfounded.

Much of the credit here goes to Ross, his cameraman and sound editor who brilliantly foreground Katniss’ thoughts and feelings with well considered, highly stylized shots. Case in point: after Katniss blows up a stockpile of food, the concussion from the blast knocks her into a state of disorientation. In the book, Katniss worries to herself that she may have gone deaf in one ear. In the movie, this fear is realized with muffled audio, a lens sliding in and out of focus and an extremely shaky Steadicam. These stylized shots are used with the utmost discretion so as not to overplay the effect. In less skillful hands, many of Katniss’ characterizations would’ve been lost in translation, but fortunately Ross and Co. deftly display Katniss’ thoughts onscreen.

All things considered, this is one of those rare instances where the movie is comparable in quality to the book upon which it’s based. The stage is set for a frenzied, fantastical franchise. Whether or not the sequels live up to this inaugural installment of Collins’ trilogy remains to be seen, but either way, this film has left me hungry for more.

Rating: 3