by Samuel Nichols, Contributing Writer
The young adult dystopian drama had its day in the sun. Divergent, The Giver, Maze Runner. They milked the cow of this genre until it had nothing left to give. Just more love triangles and “special” white girl protagonists. Promising young actors shooting their careers in the foot by being in this instead of a good movie. But The Hunger Games franchise always stood above. Maybe it’s because of the star power of Jennifer Lawrence, or the more action-centric nature of those movies. But the further we got into the franchise, the lower the quality dipped; the original morbid curiosity the franchise had fallen off. But The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a welcome return to the world of Panem as the focus returns to the games themselves.
60 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteers as tribute, the country of Panem is still reeling from a war that rocked the lives of all its citizens. Young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is a top student at the capitol school, despite his family’s misfortune. His scholarship is put on the line when he must mentor a hopeless but charismatic Hunger Games tribute, Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler). If she cannot make an impression on the games, he won’t be able to attend university. Whether she wins or loses, he must make her memorable.
What makes it so easy for me to enjoy Ballad is its world building. Bleak and depressing are not new themes to Panem, but seeing the future President Snow struggling makes him an odd reflection of Katniss. While the opulent but war-torn capital is juxtaposed against the impoverished but homey-feeling districts, it’s obvious those feelings of conflict are still there.
Even more interesting is seeing how the games once were. It’s like reading stories or watching film of bygone sports eras. The pageantry around the games hasn’t become what it will, but the brutality of watching 24 impoverished kids kill each other doesn’t need to be adjusted for the message to get across — I did appreciate the more fluid nature of the fight scenes. It felt more John Wick than Jason Bourne.
There a lot of callbacks and connections to the old movies, too. We get at least one Katniss reference, and several characters are related to later figures, or appear in the earlier flicks themselves. Normally I would view that kind of thing as just straight-up fan service which gets in the way of good storytelling, but it seems appropriate here. It’s well-crafted, and those connections serve a purpose rather than just being a point in time for viewers to point at the screen like Leonardo DiCaprio. Particularly, we get an origin for the “Hanging Tree” song that reminds us of the terror of living under a totalitarian regime. When you add that to Zegler’s tremendous singing, the songs in that movie are surprisingly good.
Speaking of, Zegler is on an absolute warpath in this movie. She has no peers on screen with her at anytime. From abject terror to joy to heartbreak, she has range and is given the script to show it off; she is captivating. Seeing her perform again reminds me she was robbed of even a nomination for her performance in West Side Story. This is another tremendous entry in her filmography.
The rest of the cast is unhinged. Viola Davis looks like she’s on a 10-day bender, and I love it. Peter Dinklage is the classic hatable professor. Jason Schwartzman is back to his old ways of looking like a complete prick, and his comedic timing helps the movie a lot. In a serious movie about teenagers killing each for sport, we need someone to make jokes.
Being back in Panem was a delight. It had well-done fan service and fun performances spearheading its picture. This is a worthy entry in the Hunger Games franchise.
Rating: Liked It
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is currently playing in theaters
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