As a book and film blog, I have the perfect opportunity to talk about a film that’s recently been adapted from one of my favourite books! The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes.
The book (and film) is a prequel to ‘The Hunger Games’ (64 years before those books began) and is essentially President Snow’s origin story. He is a student in the Capitol and was assigned to mentor a District 12 tribute – Lucy Gray Baird, the book follows his relationship with her as he slowly becomes the man we know in the later books.
I had previously read the books before going into the films so I already had expectations, in some ways that may have hindered my views on the film but in other ways, I’m glad I had that context. Don’t get me wrong – I loved the film but there are a few elements that have been playing on my mind since that wouldn’t have really transferred well to film but still change the characters as a whole.
The main problem (which is no fault of the filmmakers because it isn’t really possible to do) is Snow’s inner monologue. As the book progresses we basically get Snow’s thoughts at every moment, it gives you so much insight into his decisions and the character as a whole but unfortunately, you can’t get those insights in the film. Ultimately this made the ending forest scene slightly lackluster for me, reading the book really had the shock factor but it felt rushed and glossed over for me. Saying that the final scene of the movie was really well done.
There are a few other elements missed out that whilst don’t massively affect the plot, would’ve been cool to have – such as the recovery scenes from Clemensia and more from Tigris that just give more context to the store as a whole.
In general though, as mentioned before I still loved the film – Tom Blyth was exceptional as Coriolanus Snow and Rachel Zegler was an amazing Lucy Gray, with an absolutely incredible voice (It was really nice to actually hear the songs we’ve read) and the chemistry was great between the two. Hunter Schafer was also perfect as Tigris and I wish we got to see more from her.
I’ve seen that the original cut of the movie was shy of being 4 hours long and I’m kind of hoping that version will be released somehow, while the film was already long, it felt rushed in parts and there was a lot that could be included – hopefully we will at least get some deleted scenes.
If you haven’t read the book, I thoroughly recommend it – it’s a great book and had me captured the whole way through!
rosie reviews 