The Hunger Games Review

• 22nd Mar 2012

When I found out that The Hunger Games had gone into pre-production as a film I felt two conflicting emotions.  First, giddiness.  I love The Hunger Games trilogy of books, and was giddy with happiness at the thought of seeing Katniss Everdeen on the big screen.  The second emotion was terror.  Pure, blind terror.  The type of terror that only a true fan boy or girl can feel when one of their favourite books is about to be turned into a film.  What if they ruin it?  What if the director doesn’t get it?  What if they cast someone terrible in the lead?  So it was with these conflicting emotions rolling around in my stomach that I settled down to finally watch The Hunger Games.

And slowly, as the story started to unravel, I realized that my terror had been completely unfounded, somehow they had managed to pull it off, and pull it off well.  I don’t want to give away too many spoilers if I can help it, because it’s a bit of a rollercoaster ride and I think you should experience it first hand if you can, but I will give you a bit of background to the story (or you could just read my spoilerific review of the book).

The film focuses on Katniss Everdeen, a sixteen-year-old girl who volunteers to take her sister’s place after she’s chosen as Tribute for the 74^th Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is a televised death match whereby one girl and one boy from each of the country’s twelve Districts are pitted against each other in an arena created and controlled by the government.

The book starts by setting the scene in District 12, Katniss’ home, and I was pleased to see that the film took a fair whack of time in the District establishing the world and the characters outside of the context of the Games.  It’s clear that they plan to film the remaining books in the series, so this groundwork will hold them in good stead for that.  I was also pleased to see that, after the “Reaping” where Katniss volunteers as Tribute, we weren’t immediately thrown into the action and thrust of the Games.  The film takes its time getting there, we get to see the opulence of the Capitol and dig deeper into the characters of Katniss and Peeta.  Looking back, I think this had always been the root of my fears.  Would they bother to take the time to establish these characters, would they give the actors the room to breath life into these people and these relationships?  Yes these establishing scenes make for a longer film, because none of the action in the arena is sacrificed to make way for it, but it is absolutely worthwhile including and these days, one can hardly call 142 minutes bum numbing.

Overall I was very happy with the casting.  Jennifer Lawrence, who proved herself so adept at playing a strong female character in Winter’s Bone, tackles the difficult role of Katniss was aplomb.  She’s thoroughly believable as a girl who has hidden her emotional vulnerability behind a wall of imperturbability.  It’s really only in her scenes with her sister and young Tribute Rue that we see her softer side. Even with Peeta, her walls are well and truly up, which is why she has such a hard time believing that he might love her. Or it might be that they’ve put so much guy-liner on Josh Hutcherson’s Peeta that she’s unsure what his sexual orientation might be…

Although I like Hutcherson very much as an actor, especially in the wonderful The Kids Are Alright, I’m not completely convinced by his Peeta.  Again, it might be the guy-liner and I’m sure he’ll win me over in the second and third installments, but I didn’t (and this is terribly shallow) think he was handsome enough to play a romantic lead.  He’s a bit young, especially next to Jennifer Lawrence who looks like she might eat him for breakfast (which is I guess the point) and even more so when compared to Liam Hemsworth’s Gale, who I cannot for a moment entertain as being only seventeen years old.  Someone just pointed out to me that my not finding Hutcherson attractive was a sign that a) I’m getting old b) I’m not the core demographic for this film.  They might be onto something there, because looks aside, Hutcherson does capture Peeta’s kindness and ability to charm, so I guess I can’t really fault him for not being my type.

I was also a little disappointed to see that they had toned down the character of Haymitch from the book.  Although Woody Harrelson does a great job making the character memorable, this Haymitch seems less a genuine alcoholic and more a man capable of saying no, which is a shame because it means that we’re not going to see much of a character arc from him as the series progresses, and Harrelson as an actor is more than capable of dealing with complex character arcs. But I guess there is only so much you can fit into a film.

One final complaint I’ll make is that I wasn’t overly keen on the costumes.  It may sound like nit-picking to be talking about costume design, but I worry that the scenes, especially those in the Capitol will be terribly dated by the outrageously bright colours, wigs and interesting facial hair the extras are sporting.  I realize Suzanne Collins lays this out in the books, and the costume design team have stuck fairly close to it, but visually it’s a bit like watching the future scenes in Quantum Leap.

Nit-picking aside it’s a very skillful film especially in the way the violence is handled.  This could easily have been pushed over to a higher certification, but cleaver cut-aways and the “suggestion” of violence is used to keep the rating down without loosing the emotional resonance. There is blood however, a fair amount of it, and the one death scene that was bound to make you cry in the book is retained here in all of its heartbreaking glory.

Overall it’s an excellent start to what will no doubt be a hugely financially successful series. There is enough of what made the books great to please die-hard fans and they’ve been clever to add more time with the gamemakers to further highlight the disconnect between the government as its people and help set the scene for the rebellion that will be coming in the next two films. If they manage to maintain this careful filmmaking for all three films, they’ll have created something really special.

Suzanne King