The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes Review
Theatrical Movie Review - YA/Dystopian
In 2008, Suzanne Collins took the world by storm with her book, “The Hunger Games.” The novel, along with the others in the trilogy, spent more than 260 consecutive weeks on the NYT best-seller list. The books were adapted into popular films beginning in 2012, and in 2020, Collins followed up her original trilogy with a prequel that follows the rise of Coriolanus Snow, the antagonist in the first books. The film adaptation of “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” opens this week, directed by Francis Lawrence.
The once-proud Snow family was brought to ruin, so young Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) has made it his mission to win the Plinth Prize to restore some measure of his family’s wealth. But as interest in the Hunger Games has waned with the populace, Dean Highbottom (Peter Dinklage) adds a new requirement to the prize: the students must mentor the tributes in the games and the best mentor will win. Snow is saddled with Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), the female tribute from District 12, one of the poorest districts and therefore an unlikely candidate to emerge triumphant from the games. Snow’s best friend Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andres Rivera) opposes the games, wanting audience members to remember that the tributes are people. Snow uses that as a tactic, but humanizing his mentee forces him to see her humanity as well.
This movie starts incredibly strong. It is broken into three chapters, and the first two are impactful in ways that I feel like the previous films never quite were. Because we are being introduced to the Hunger Games early in its conception, there are few bells and whistles, highlighting the brutality of sending children to murder each other in a way that the originals did not. The idea behind the movies was always appalling, but this brings it to stark relief.
However, the third act falters significantly by rushing the end. I felt the same way reading the book, and it is only amplified in the film adaptation. There is a turn at the end that just doesn’t feel earned, and despite a strong opening, it left me unsatisfied.
The performances throughout the film are all beautifully executed. Blyth walks the line between warm and chilling with expertise. Zegler shines as the songbird, with plenty of opportunities to sing, leaving me excited to see where she goes in her career. And in a film filled with characters whose motives are hard to read, Rivera plays Sejanus with heartbreaking openness. Each of the tributes feels far more fleshed out than they did in previous films. Viola Davis brings incredible mad-scientist energy to her role as Dr. Gaul, the head gamemaker.
There is much to love about this movie. It is a reminder of the thin line between civility and barbarism, and how survival is often not pretty. It shows ways that power corrupts. I only wish that the ending had left me feeling more sated.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on November 19, 2023.