It’s been eighteen years since Suzanne Collins wrote “The Hunger Games”, the smash hit literary sensation that continues to feel relevant and capture the attention of readers. This ongoing series will be a review series of both the Suzanne Collins books, as well as the film adaptations of the novels. I will post my review on the last Thursday of the month as we revisit the totalitarian world of Panem and the hope of the Mockingjay.
Film: “Mockingjay: Part 1”
OKAY, we are back on schedule and it’s once again time for “Fire’s Catching” for the month! This month’s post is about “Mockingjay: Part 1”, the first of two movies that adapt the third novel in the original series. While I’m not totally convinced that they needed to split the book into two films, I will say right off the bat this one didn’t feel padded out, so I am fine with it being two instead of one. After discovering that I really loved the book I was quite interested to see how the film compares, and while it doesn’t exceed the source material like “Catching Fire” does, it, for the most part, adapts the source material pretty well.
One thing that struck me almost immediately is how this first film of the two kind of downplays the absolute authoritarian hellscape that District 13 is in the book. In the movie, they kind of change up the origin of 13, as instead of 13 approaching the Capitol and saying ‘let us go and disappear or we nuke you to oblivion’, in the film they say that 13 was bombed pretty heavily and then they played possum and stayed underground to be off the radar. So they are already less duplicitous from basically the first couple of scenes (it really cheesed my grits that they just ditched everyone else in the book!). They also cut out Katniss’s prep team being horrifically tortured for no discernible reason outside of ‘because funsies’. And while they KIND of hint that Coin may not be as magnanimous as she appears to be, in this movie she isn’t nearly as sketchy to Katniss as she was in the book. I think that this is a detriment to the story, as one of the points that Collins is trying to make in the book is that authoritarianism, no matter if it’s an authoritarianism that you may ideologically agree with/be on the side of, is STILL authoritarianism and is BAD, actually. By defanging 13 it strips them of their weight as of now, and I didn’t like that choice. Here’s hoping Part 2 amps it up even beyond Coin’s ultimate downfall, it’s been awhile since I’ve watched that one because, well…. it devastates me.
But outside of making a kinder gentler District 13, there were a lot of things I enjoyed about the adaptation. Much like the previous movies, the film expands beyond Katniss’s POV and gives us insight not only into what the other Districts are doing as they rebel during the war, we also get to see the likes of Snow making tactical moves and Coin and Plutarch making moves of their own (side note: I really liked seeing Plutarch in his scenes with Coin because knowing what we know about Coin and her motives vs Plutarch and his motives, Philip Seymour Hoffman is playing it like he’s doing his OWN calculations against HER should things go sour). It also makes perfect sense to end it where they do, as what a cliffhanger for non-book readers (like meeee at the time) to leave them with Peeta being basically a rabid dog who wants nothing more than to take Katniss out EVEN THOUGH BEFORE HIS BRAINWASHING HE WAS IN LOVE WITH HER, UGH, MY HEART. It’s a spectacular choice and I applaud it.
But the biggest and best change of the adaptation? It is OBVIOUSLY Effie!!! In the book Effie doesn’t even show up until the end and is clearly being spared from punishment but seems pretty shellshocked and downtrodden. Effie in the movie, however, is being held in 13 and Plutarch and Haymitch are hoping that she will be not only a ‘prep team’ for the propaganda, but also be a good source of support for her. And Effie just lights up the entire movie, mostly because Elizabeth Banks continues to be incredibly cunt, but also because she is really one of the only people that seems to REALLY care for Katniss and her wellbeing. I really love how much the films give Effie to work with, showing a woman who was indoctrinated by the Capitol slowly but surely learning that her life has been a complete lie and changing sides and learning empathy and compassion and how wrong she was. And I’m not ashamed to say that I greatly enjoy the chemistry between her and Haymitch, she doesn’t take his shit and he totally loves that.
In terms of new characters and new actors, the ones of note are Julianne Moore as Alma Coin and Mahershala Ali as Boggs, the dictator of 13 and the security head of 13 respectively. Moore plays Coin with a cool affect and a veneer of transformative leadership, but definitely feeling disingenuous and secretive. I really loved Ali’s Boggs, and I know he has more to do in Part 2, but even here he is clearly a steady and serious but incredibly loyal person and Ali plays it perfectly. And a special shout out to Elden Henson who plays avox cameraman Pollux, only because when he played Fulton Reed in “The Mighty Ducks” my first grade self was fully convinced she was going to marry him one day. Needless to say, that didn’t really pan out.
“Mockingjay: Part 1” makes some changes from the book I didn’t like, but makes others that I do, and all in all it’s a really enjoyable film. Next month I will take on “Mockingjay: Part 2” and I’m sure I’ll be feeling a certain way about it.
The Library Ladies 