Jonah Naplan   November 17, 2023

“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” the movie adaptation of the prequel novel to the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, is one of the most pleasant surprises of the whole year, packed with suspense, intrigue, and loads of emotion. It’s buoyed by two terrific performances—a star-making run from Tom Blyth, and a career-best from “West Side Story” star Rachel Zegler—as well as several notable supporting characters who might just steal the show out from under the two leads in their own schemes of mischievous ways.

Unlike the parable of a young Katniss Everdeen overcoming pure evil to prove her name in an idyllic society, this is the timed fable of a man so fraught with his view of himself and his future that he gets caught up with the wrong people, and turns to the dark side, despite a young woman trying her hardest to hold him back, and who comes dangerously close to being pulled into evil herself. That man and woman are Coriolanus Snow (Blyth), one of the top Capitol prospects, and Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler), the female District 12 tribute who is to be guided by Snow before she competes in the 10th Annual Hunger Games, 64 years before Katniss Everdeen ever graced our pages.

The movie channels the ups and downs of their complex relationship, one that is not without its turbulent monkey wrenches, nor its intimate moments either, but their adoration ultimately feels to be out of desperation, rather than a genuine love that navigates their lives. That’s not to say these two are not in love; the movie asserts that Snow will forever remain in debt to Lucy Gray after she saves his life, and this plot detail is characterized through sexy dialogue exchanges that hint at a depth to their camaraderie never fully explored, but their relationship always seems to be harboring a wicked secret, that they’re both hiding something from one another, aware of an affair that the other is not. The script by Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt does not shy away from playing to the intrigue of this matter, which helps the movie better develop its themes as it progresses, especially during the final hour which has payoff for everything we had previously learned about our two protagonists.

The movie, like a stage play, is separated into three very distinct acts or chapters, that each explore different ideas regarding our characters, the settings they inhabit, and what they must do in order to stay or escape from those given circumstances. The first act, titled “The Mentor,” introduces the ensemble—in addition to Snow and his student, other major figures of the Hunger Games and the Capitol include head gamemaster Dr. Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis, perfectly wily as ever), Lucky Flickerman, the antecedent to Stanley Tucci’s Caesar Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman, a major scene-stealer), and Casca Highbottom, the dean of the Academy who was instrumental in developing the Hunger Games (Peter Dinklage, precisely on point).

The first hour also introduces us to a couple of Lucy’s main competitors, some of whom are even granted with a specific personality trait that’s brought up again at least once before they’re killed off. For the most part, it seems as though Panem has conjured up the absolute cockiest or humblest people to compete in this death race, and part of the shock of watching this reimagining of the games comes from the lack of a distinct gray area. We aren’t sorry when the worst ones get inevitably thwacked across the noggin with blunt objects or devoured by poisonous snakes. But we do care when the genuinely sympathetic ones die just because that’s how fate has it, instead of by the hands of Lucy, who both narrowly avoids danger and ends up winning the games essentially by pure luck and coincidence.

Act two, titled “The Prize,” is the manifestation of what the 10th Hunger Games would actually look like, with all its rudimentary fixings—the underdeveloped drones, the tight spaces that cameras don’t touch—and it’s the strongest section of the whole movie. A clever calculation made by Snow to help Lucy win is secluded by an alibi that allows Zegler to hone her beautiful singing chops—Lucy is referred to as a “songbird” and the word “ballad” is in the title, afterall. But this method of cheating inevitably puts Snow in hot water with Highbottom, who banishes him to fulfill Peacekeeper duties back in District 12, the same district that Lucy is sent to after Gaul reluctantly pronounces her the victor.

This intersection of paths lends itself to the third and final act, “The Peacekeeper,” a modest, pastoral departure in tone, mood, and emotion that woefully interrogates the repercussions of a tight covenant never fully satisfied. Some will call this the most riveting portion of the movie, while I found that it bogged the pacing down and made for an exaggerated runtime of 157 minutes, despite all its thoughtfulness. At its weakest, the final hour doesn’t do a great job of explaining why these two characters turn to enemies, betraying each other in fits of rage—an ultimate disservice to the novel. But at its strongest, it foregrounds themes that were established in other parts of this narrative epic, making the little details all the more satisfying. Hints to the origin of the name “Katniss” and the symbolism of the Mockingjay and such will have YA fans pointing to the screen excitedly and whispering names of people and objects they recognize. Among other things, “The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” certainly knows its audience and where it’s coming from.

Director Francis Lawrence, who helmed the “Catching Fire” and both “Mockingjay” film adaptations, working with frequent cinematographer Jo Willems, paints gorgeous landscapes; and not just the lush forests and countrysides of District 12. The cloudy skyline of the Capitol makes for a dreary, gray atmosphere that adds mood to the proceedings, the camera spins painful circles around a character mourning the death of a friend, and it traps us in the same small spaces that Lucy encloses herself in as a method of self-protection. But, just as effectively, the movie convinces us of Coriolanus’s presence as a captor himself, who realizes his dominance over Lucy in the third act, and then pursues it to later become President Snow of Panem.

The movie is smattered with moments of this caliber of foreshadowing, inhibiting the audience’s ability to hope for the triumph of good, as we already know what will end up happening no matter how hard our characters try to hinder the inevitable outcome. So the movie must stick with what it’s got, employing the intrigue card in such a way that we’re still in suspense about what’s gonna happen, even though we know what’s gonna happen.

The great things about “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” work as well as they do for so long because each member of the cast and crew has been asked to play to their strengths, and they all do so marvelously. I’d imagine there’s a much tighter version of this script that more effectively hammers home its points, but that’s a minor quibble about a movie with great acting and great singing, and if only it had great dancing too, you could call it a triple threat.

Now playing in theaters.