The Hunger Games

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Woody Harrelson
Directed by Gary Ross
Year: 2012
IMDB / Wikipedia

Every now and then, I will find it necessary to break protocol to tend to my extremely large Netflix queue. This is one of those times. 

There’s the old standard that Literature teachers the world-over use in their classes: the book is always better than the movie. Being someone old enough to have made a good amount of mistakes it is hard for me to speak in such absolutes; I find it trite and, most of the time, easy to debunk. However, sometimes you do find the exception that proves the rule but, for the most part, the statements are usually weak and conflict becomes inevitable because it is a completely subjective view of the piece.

When the film was announced I sought out a synopsis of Suzanne Collins‘ novel and was immediately intrigued. I enjoy stories about a future too horrible to be true but, for the sake of the plot, are. I find they make the best character studies and the best ones are usually so disturbing because they are so plausible. Before the film was released I sought out and read the book and absolutely loved it. The characters were warm and well-defined, the plot was as disturbing as it was intriguing, and the tension was palpable and kept me turning the page. I also found myself thinking that the events lent themselves to be filmed rather easily and that this could be the rare exception that proves the rule: the movie that is as good as the book.

Sadly, I don’t know exactly what I just watched. It looked like The Hunger Games, the story was similar, the characters had the same names, and some of the events were the same, but that was on my screen wasn’t the story I fell in love with. Who were those people? They weren’t the well-rounded, flawed characters I admired and followed into the arena, the story was a whisper of what it had been in the book, and the resolution felt like an inevitability instead of something the characters earned.

One of the major obstacles of adapting a book into a film is the voice of the narrator, which in the book was Katniss (Lawrence), and her perspective on volunteering as a tribute of her district in the Panem‘s Hunger Games that pits 24 young people from the twelve district in the nation to fight to the death. The winner is an instant celebrity, the district is treated better, and it is all for entertainment. Think of it like The Running Man only with children. Katniss’ voice lends so much to the world, not only in her perception of it, but how the people and events are drawn. Without that voice and passion everything becomes two-dimensional and worthless. The bonds and the perceptions are broken and the tension is given to the events and not the psychological damage they cause. And all of this could have been remedied with a simple voice-over narration added into a film that was already well over 2-hours in length.

But the most insulting part was the manufactured conflict that replaced the well-structured events in the book. The filmmakers seemed to pick and choose what they wanted to include and it seemed that the trivial stuff made it while, the details that made the world so realistic and that much more frightening was left by the wayside. There was too much focus on the violence and not enough on the human factor. I imagine this was done to make the events more matter-of-fact but, coupled with the crappy cinematography, it was left in a jumbled mess that left you wondering what was happening and not why it was happening.

Lastly, and this is sad to say, the casting was a joke. Katniss is supposed to be a strong-fierce woman who, at the end, is supposed to become a convincing actress as she plays up her relationship with Peeta. Instead of obtaining an actress that could do this, they found Jennifer Lawrence who grumbles her way through the movie like it is the sequel to Winter’s Bone and is immensely unlikable. The reason for her attitude is explained in the books and becomes part of why she is a sympathetic character, but the movie withholds it and makes her seem like a brooding bitch. Peeta is supposed to be a warrior in the guise of a nice person but Josh Hutcherson turns him into a shallow boy-band wannabe without any real honor or believable emotion. Some might say that the characters are truly too complex for any young actor to undertake, but after hearing about how much the fillmmakers agonized over the casting, to see this product makes me wonder if they truly agonized enough.

Despite my education and credentials, I am not a fast reader. Saying that, it took me slightly longer to read the book than it did to watch the film. So, if you have a few hours some afternoon skip over this vastly disappointing movie and curl up with the book, which is available for purchase pretty much anywhere.

Most Valuable Actor: Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, the District 12’s mentor and sole surviving Hunger Games champion, was the best part of this film despite the fact half of his role and impact on the story was left elsewhere. He was the only person on screen that did not physically appear to be struggling to keep in character and his portrayal was as close to the source as it could have been. Now, I want everyone to look at what Woody is doing and try to do it as well as him so Catching Fire isn’t a similar clusterfuck.

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