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Obligatory Hunger Games Post
I saw The Hunger Games Saturday, having barely heard of the books and with no expectations except the usual vague dis-ease that accompanies any story about a heroic girl marketed to a teen audience--because, Buffy notwithstanding, they are so rarely done well. And so I was pleasantly surprised. I found myself thinking midway through, "Dang, this is a pretty good movie."
I've read with interest the critiques of
umadoshi and others who are more deeply familiar with the story, and by and large, I agree: the film is too "white" (though this is a pervasive problem with Hollywood, not something special about this film); the coding of the clueless privileged as "queer" was problematic, as was their othering in general; hunger as a theme was certainly not much in evidence. Yes, there was room for improvement.
(light spoilers)
Yet the movie avoided so very many pitfalls common to the heroic teen drama genre. The characters' behaviors, on the whole, seemed realistic for a group of people being sent off to kill and die: they were stressed and desperate and not behaving like high school students on the school yard. There was, thankfully, no real romance in a story whose circumstances would not have supported it (see previous point). The games themselves passed as plausible and the tributes as intelligent. The interplay between primitive gladiatorial sport and sci fi reality show was very effective (though I do appreciate critiques that characters' motives could have been played as more ambiguous, in keeping with knowing yourself to be under constant surveillance). Good performances all around. I was impressed.
My greatest niggle was that the inherently agonizing moral scenario did seem to let Katniss off a little too easily--without having to make the hardest choices, like whether or not to kill people she likes/feels loyalty to. (Yes, at the very end, she's confronted with this, but only after she had clearly made an emotional decision to stay loyal to Peeta back when she thought she could do this without either of them having to die.) This is a small niggle however.
This story came out of nowhere for me, and it was a very pleasant surprise to find it suddenly diverting my afternoon with solid and enjoyable storytelling. I'll look forward to the next one.
I've read with interest the critiques of
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(light spoilers)
Yet the movie avoided so very many pitfalls common to the heroic teen drama genre. The characters' behaviors, on the whole, seemed realistic for a group of people being sent off to kill and die: they were stressed and desperate and not behaving like high school students on the school yard. There was, thankfully, no real romance in a story whose circumstances would not have supported it (see previous point). The games themselves passed as plausible and the tributes as intelligent. The interplay between primitive gladiatorial sport and sci fi reality show was very effective (though I do appreciate critiques that characters' motives could have been played as more ambiguous, in keeping with knowing yourself to be under constant surveillance). Good performances all around. I was impressed.
My greatest niggle was that the inherently agonizing moral scenario did seem to let Katniss off a little too easily--without having to make the hardest choices, like whether or not to kill people she likes/feels loyalty to. (Yes, at the very end, she's confronted with this, but only after she had clearly made an emotional decision to stay loyal to Peeta back when she thought she could do this without either of them having to die.) This is a small niggle however.
This story came out of nowhere for me, and it was a very pleasant surprise to find it suddenly diverting my afternoon with solid and enjoyable storytelling. I'll look forward to the next one.