The Hunger Games is back on the big screen, and it’s completely different than you’ve seen it before. “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” written by Suzanne Collins in 2020, is a prequel to the massively popular trilogy “The Hunger Games,” and its new movie adaptation was released on Nov. 17.
But this prequel doesn’t feature the familiar faces of Katniss or Peeta. Taking place 60 years before any of our recognizable tributes take the screen, the story is entirely devoted to the backstory of the villain of the original series, President Snow.
Overall, the movie adaptation proves very faithful to the book, which is divided into three parts just as the book is. The story begins on Reaping Day of the 10th Hunger Games with orphaned 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), who lives with his grandmother and cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) in the Capitol, who are at the edge of falling from their high status because they are essentially penniless.
The Snows are not without hope, as Coryo (as his cousin calls him) expects to win a large amount of money called the “Plinth Prize,” because of his superior grades and attendance compared to his classmates in the Capitol’s academy. The money will pay for his entry into the University and ensure his family’s social and financial security.
But that morning, Coryo finds his future plans destroyed as he and his peers are told that they will be mentoring the tributes of the year’s Hunger Games, and their and their tributes’ performances will determine the winner of the Plinth Prize, not their academic merit. Coriolanus receives the female tribute from District 12, which is known as the worst district (and continues to be deemed so even until Katniss’s time). His tribute, Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler) makes an entrance with a similar level of interest as Katniss years later, by dropping a snake down the back of the mayor’s daughter’s dress and singing on the stage for all of Panem to see.
The exposition and really the entire “part one” of the movie is fast paced. While remaining accurate to the book, a lot of development of relationships between Coryo and other characters is lost. A major part of the exposition is spent on the other students in Coryo’s year and his relationships with them, or at least those who he is closer with. Sejanus Plinth, who is more or less Coryo’s friend, gets no more than a line or two of quickly spoken introduction. For those who haven’t read the book, Sejanus’ backstory isn’t very clear, which is important for his role in the story.
The first part’s quick introduction is later contrasted by part three’s slowed pace, and while it corresponds with the shift in pace in the book, it makes the ending of this two-and-a-half-hour-long film drag. The movie could have benefitted from more time spent on exposition at the beginning of the story and speeding up the events of the third part a little. Additionally, the important news delivered to Coryo at the very end of the second part just didn’t hit as hard as it did in the book, and could have also benefited from a little better pacing.
Besides these really small issues, the movie in my opinion, was amazing. After only ten or so minutes, it was easy to tell that it just felt different than the other Hunger Games movies. Taking place 60 years before Katniss’s time in the Capitol, it feels accurate to 60 years before our present day. Many elements of the 1940s-1950s are present in Panem, but all with an abundance of gilded glamor in the Capitol that includes technology that was definitely not available at that time. TVs in the Capitol are around 20 inches, and Lucky Flickerman, the announcer of the Hunger Games, has a set similar to those of talk shows in the sixties. Tributes wear newsboy caps and corsets and travel to the Capitol in a boxcar, not the high-speed rail that Katniss and Peeta use to journey into the Capitol.
This difference in design, along with the simplicity of the Hunger Games in the movie compared to those of the trilogy, really reinforce the newness of the games and Panem itself, more than any dialogue does throughout the film.
Overall, the movie succeeds where the book did: making you root for the villain of the Hunger Games series. While it is easy to sympathize with Snow because he depends on the success of Lucy Gray in the games, the movie also easily humanizes him, although maybe too much compared to the book. Because we can read Snow’s thoughts in the book, we are able to see how manipulative and calculated he is under his fairly easy demeanor around his Capitol colleagues, and that understanding of him is really lost in the movie.
If you’ve read or watched The Hunger Games though, the movie is definitely a must-see over your Thanksgiving break. The book is also definitely worth reading, although it is a little long. But no matter the format, the story provides a great look into the past of Panem and easily draws you back into the awesome world of the Hunger Games.
