On Thursday evening I waited in line with massive amounts of 13-year-olds to see "The Hunger Games." I'd spent hours sewing a cape of flames the day before to put over my red dress to be Katniss, Girl on Fire. As I was expecting, only one other person was dressed up. It was definitely a really different crowd from the Harry Potter fandom. They were obnoxious during the film, but I fed them Nightlock in my mind and did my best to tune them out.
The Hunger Games is a book (and series) that had an incredible emotional effect on me. It's one of my favourite books, so naturally I was quite skeptical of a film adaptation. Let's face it, "Harry Potter" was always kind of a disappointment, along with almost every other book-to-film adaptation of books I've loved. That being said, "The Hunger Games" was one of the best adaptations I have ever seen. It was right up there with "Holes," which is a very high compliment coming from me.
Through previous adaptation disappointments I have been told that the point of a film adaptation is to have the same feel as the book. While other films have fallen short there, "The Hunger Games" definitely did not. I left the theatre feeling the exact same way I did upon finishing the book: emotionally overwhelmed. The next day was still a haze of emotions and I wanted to constantly be talking about it. I spent the majority of the film holding back tears and cried buckets when Rue died. Just seeing her talk to Katniss in the arena had my tears flowing. The Katniss and Rue relationship was portrayed beautifully. The Reaping was another scene that had me tearing up, along with the goodbye between Katniss and her family.
I think I speak for the whole fandom when I say that I was a little concerned about the casting of Lenny Kravitz as Cinna. Cinna is one of my favourite characters and I never would have guessed that Lenny would be able to do him justice at all. You know what? I was pleasantly surprised. He made a pretty believable Cinna and had a good connection with Jennifer Lawrence. The scene where Cinna and Katniss say goodbye as Katniss goes up to the arena was filled with emotion. The way he treated her to me said that he knew he very well could be the last person who ever got to show her any kind of love.
The rest of the cast was phenomenal. Stanley Tucci was completely perfect as Caesar Flickerman. That grin. Oh my gosh. That grin. Wes Bentley was great as Seneca Crane. I'll admit, I kept getting lost in that beard. Woody Harrelson was a great Haymitch. He brought some comic relief and made it apparent that hopelessly mentoring children that were doomed to die was what drove him to drink. Peeta and Katniss are characters that are incredibly dear to my heart and I was totally impressed by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson. They were Katniss and Peeta. I can't praise them enough. Just fantastic casting all around.
I was terrified about seeing the initial scene in the arena with the rush to the cornucopia. Children killing each other and dying is not an easy thing to watch. I loved how that was shot. Speeding it up was the perfect way to show it as I'm sure that it would have felt something like that to have been inside of it. As Katniss ran out of the cornucopia and into the woods, it occurred to me that the book is such a strong first person narrative that showing the arena without being in Katniss' thoughts would be difficult. While I really like hearing what's going on in her head, I know this is where a lot of people don't like the pacing of the book, and doesn't work cinematically. The movie was a very pleasing pace; it did not feel like a two and a half hour movie. I would have been okay with it being longer. However, I did find that from the cave scene on it felt a little rushed. I realise it happens over several days in the book and that's just not doable, but I would have loved to see more of Haymitch communicating to Katniss through silver parachutes. What was kept in of the cave scene was done well, though, and Peeta's camouflage was perfect. Cato's death was also a lot quicker than I imagined, although I'm kind of grateful for that.
I loved all the scenes the took place during the games outside the arena. Seeing the way they manipulated the game was a powerful way of showing just how ruthless the gamemakers are. The exchanges between Snow and Seneca were just perfect. I also really enjoyed seeing Haymitch rallying for Katniss.
The look of The Capitol was stunning. I felt just like Peeta when I saw it. I found myself wanting to go there despite the fact that its filled with awful people and is, you know, fictional.
I thought it was really interesting how District 12 had a very vintagey World War II feel to it, bringing Nazis and Hitler to mind. They kept the vintage look when they showed the picture of Katniss' dad in black and white (which looked legitimately old, not just artistic), but that didn't really make sense to me since it's supposed to be the future.
As much as I loved the film and felt it was about as true to the book as films get, there were a few things I didn't like. First of all, I thought the way they did the mockingjay pin was dumb. Katniss finding it at The Hob and giving it to Prim to protect her and then getting it back from her after the protection didn't work just felt meaningless to me. It really needed to come from Madge in order to have any meaning. It'll be interesting to see what they do with that in the second and third movies since they have changed the story behind that.
The Avox was shown for about two seconds, but all of the story there was left out. The Avox may not have been a central part of the plot, but Katniss is plagued by the guilt from that for a long time, and again, that is something that is supposed to come up later, not just the Avox herself, but the way that Peeta covers for Katniss when she recognizes her.
I was really sad that the bread from District 11 was left out. To send a tribute from another district something to help her survive sends a really powerful message. It also makes it so Katniss only gets one parachute, making it kind of silly when Peeta says he doesn't get a lot of parachutes, although I guess he wouldn't have a way of knowing how many Katniss has gotten. It's interesting, though, because the friends who saw the movie with me the second time (both who don't really like the writing of The Hunger Games but enjoy the story) said that the riot that occurred after Rue's death was the only time they felt a lot of emotion during the movie. I think they're emotionally dead inside because I felt nothing but emotion for two and a half hours.
On the whole, fantastic movie which I have already seen twice, and will probably see at least once more in the theatre. I'm not easily pleased by adaptations, but "The Hunger Games" came through for me.
