From Hunger

Not one to ignore cultural phenomena, I attended The Hunger Games. It wasn't until a few months ago that I heard of the film, much less the books--I rarely read modern fiction, and when I do it's not Young Adult. ("Young Adult." What a good title for a bad movie.)

Spoilers ahead. The story (as far as I can gather from the movie) is set in a dystopian future where America is separated into 12 districts and run despotically from its capital.  The lowest of the low is District 12, which seems to be coal-mining country. Each year a boy and a girl, aged 12-18, is chosen from each district to participate in the Hunger Games, where they fight to the death, with only one survivor.  It's televised and is so popular it apparently keeps the regular folk happy enough so that they won't rise up.

Our protagonist is Katniss Everdeen, a tough teenage girl of District 12 who's good at hunting and has held her family together since her dad died.  When her twelve-year-old sister Primrose is chosen for the Games, she volunteers to take her place. (Volunteers are not common, though apparently in the tonier districts there are young killers bred for the competition.) So she and Peeta, the boy they chose (with whom she shares a history), travel to the capital where for about a week they live in luxury they've never known, train for the competition and become celebrities. Then, about halfway through the movie, the Games begin.

If you want to know how it turns out, see the film (or read the books).  The movie is already a blockbuster hit, and has gotten decent reviews, but I found it wanting.  I wasn't bored, which is something, but it has significant problems.

First, I have trouble taking the premise seriously.  I realize there have been historical situations where people were killed for the amusement of others, and there are also numerous pieces of fiction, sf and otherwise, that portray such events.  But it's still hard to buy that this world we see--no matter how much the people have been affected by recent history--would accept such a bloodthirsty sport.  Even if they don't want to rebel, couldn't the districts make it clear to the capital that it's time to stop slaughtering 25 kids every year?  Yet these games are so popular, they effectively stop rebellions?

Another problem: why kids?  I know why for the novel--so the readers the book is aimed at can identify.  But shouldn't these combatants at least be of draft age?  Speaking of which, why mix in 12-years-old with 18-year-olds. Hardly seems fair.  For that matter, why mix boys with girls?  Perhaps we're not supposed to care about this, but pretty much any sort of competition where speed and strength help segregates boys and girls by the time they hit high school age.

But fine, I'll accept the premise.  Does the story work?  Some of it is fun.  Visting the capital, preparing for the fights and meeting their guides, played by Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Banks, is intriguing.  But still, the whole concept is so grim, with death hanging over everything they do, that it's hard to enjoy it.  If they were entering a competition (or even a war) where their skills could help them all survive it would be one thing, but we know they've all got to die but one.

The same goes for the actual Games.  The kids form alliances, but what's the point?  It's hard to be moved by them helping each other when you know if they're successful all that means is they eventually have to turn on each other.

Worse, much worse, is the action.  We follow the story mostly through Catniss, and almost every other character is underserved, including Peeta.  Though at least he gets enough screen time to register--the boy she leaves behind, Gale, barely exists.  Then there are the villains--it's hard to have good action without good villains.  But the competitors trying to kill Catniss are so undifferentiated I could barely tell you anything about them. The wider groups of villains--Donald Sutherland as the President and Wes Bentley as the game designer--are essentially cardboard.  Only Stanley Tucci is memorable in a demonic/comic turn as the Ryan Seacrest-like TV host of the Hunger Games. (By the way, some have commented on the political allegory, but the story is vague enough that you can read it as a message against big government or against capitalist greed.)

The action also isn't filmed that well, with a lot of shaky cam and, to protect the PG-13 rating, not too much direct violence and almost no gore.  More important, writer-director Gary Ross's work comes across as muted--you don't get much sense of danger, fright, dread or triumph.  It's all too even. He was a surprising choice to direct--a decent writer, often working in comedy, he's only directed two films, Pleasantville and Seabiscuit. Perhaps the producers were going for someone who could bring out the human side, though it seems to me they could have done better there, while his lack of experience in action shows.  But what do I know?  The film's a giant hit.

Jennifer Lawrence is fine as Katniss, though the casting seems a bit on the nose. She rose to prominence playing the lead in Winter's Bone, where she played a tough teenage girl in coal-mining country who held her family together when her dad went missing and her mom was out of it.  She's practically repeating the role here.

I was also bothered by how arbitrary the Games seemed to be.  The idea was, I suppose, that everything's rigged to play to the TV audience, and to hold down the public (though I still don't get how that works), but if the rules can be changed in mid-stream, and if some things close to cheating are allowed, what's the point?

One question I had in the back of my mind while watching the film was how were they going to bring down the whole corrupt system.  That's obviously where the plot is leading.  Then I remembered.  Sequels.