As a novel, the Hunger Games was fairly compelling. It didn’t take me long to read it and I knew a few people who would also enjoy it. What hooked me was one part the (heavily veiled) history of Panem, another part was the games themselves and how they fit into this ‘new’ vision of a post-apocalyptic America. But what really kept me going was the weathering of abuses that author Suzanne Collins threw at Katniss. Some of them were fairly standard survival fare; being forced to kill and watching friends die are popular mechanics of the genre.
But the games are orchestrated and ruthless, and to survive, Katniss was forced to change who she was several times in order to give herself the best chance of winning; changes that could have easily broken her – or anybody else subject to them. Accepting help from the shallow hipster elite from the Capitol is a tiny death for her ego and self-reliance. Pretending to be the smitten crush of Peeta is a betrayal of her own emotions, and finally succumbing to those feelings and actually caring about Peeta enough to risk/sacrifice her life for his are a betrayal to Gale – and something she would never have done if not for the Games.
And herein lies the failing of the film. Without Katniss’ internal monologue to help us understand what she’s going through, the scene-for-scene re-enactment of the Hunger Games as written in the novel just isn’t as compelling as it should be. Jennifer Lawrence’s casting is good; her face has that equal mix of vulnerability and determination that is needed to fill the role, but at the same time she seems older and less affected by the events presented to her Katniss than the Katniss of the novel. She makes the survival part look routine and easy.
In that small failing – failing to show us real emotional turmoil and the actual day to day struggle the Games, and at the same time failing to deviate from the scenes of the book, the movie becomes two hours of fanservice. People who haven’t read the book may well enjoy it as a film, but for me, it was missing either: A) enough drama to make me feel truly concerned for what shadow of her former self would leave the Games alive, or B) enough action to just make me worried she wouldn’t live through it.
If you’re a fan of the books; by all means go and see it on the big screen. Suzanne Collins doesn’t really describe District 12 much, so it’s nice to see it interpreted visually. But if you’re hoping the movie will get you or your kids interested in picking up the book (or save you the trouble of actually reading it) you might come away with the feeling that it’s not as action packed or exciting as you were led to believe. It’s just that the movie only shows you the actions of the novel; not the thoughts and struggles and internal debates that haunt Katniss far more than the other Tributes, and it’s poorer for it.
I guess The Wonder Years has inadvertently prevented anybody ever trying a spoken internal monologue ever again…