A Lot of Songbirds
Francis Lawrence heads back to panem for a blatant cash-grab that’s actually better than the first films. Whodathunk?
The Hunger GAmes: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Director: Francis Lawrence • Writers: Michael Lesslie, Michael Arndt, based on the book by Suzanne Collins
Starring: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Viola Davis, Peter Dinklage, Josh Andrés Rivera, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman
Hong Kong • 2hrs 37mins
Opens Hong Kong November 16 • IIA
Grade: B-
No word of a lie, for two-thirds of The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes, it’s actually a more engaging movie than any of its predecessors. That itself is a rare and nearly impossible feat, and when you add to that the fact it stands well enough on its own, without a library’s worth of prior knowledge and familiarity with ridiculous names, to enjoy, you’re on to something. Full credit to director Francis Lawrence (Constantine, I Am Legend), returning from Catching Fire and the Mockingjays, for finding fresh energy for the fifth entry we don’t need, in a franchise whose star has dimmed considerably.
So you can imagine the gnawing dread that creeps in as the last one-third of the movie spins its wheels and sucks every bit of air out of the theatre as it details Coriolanus Snow’s (discount Neal McDonough, Tom Blyth) conversion from creative but conflicted elite to the tyrannical President Snow we see in movies 1 to 4. The real gut punch (suggested in the trailer) comes when it turns out he’s all dictator-y because his girlfwend Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler, Shazam: Fury of the Gods) huwt his witty bitty feawlings waaaaah! Seriously, why load the first half with interesting, far more considered ideas about power, privilege, class and media than any of the earlier films did, only to drop them for a story about a dude that’s butt hurt about his failed romance. Is this what Stalin’s deal was? Does Putin need a hug? But wait, there’s more. Needlessly bloating the run time with an egregious number of, well, songs further dilutes the core story. Yes, yes, it’s right there in the damn title but Zegler’s singing minutes rival those from West Side Story – an actual musical.
There’s a country song here
Before we’re subjected to a string of boneheaded country-ish stompers or defiant Broadway anthems, we find ourselves in Panem at the height of the war that reduced it to rubble. Snow and his cousin Tigris are scavenging for food before going home to cray-cray Grandma'am (Fionnula Flanagan), who promptly tells them Snow’s dad has been murdered by 12 rebels. Not a dozen rebels; scum from District 12. Fast forward a decade or so and Tigris (Hunter Schafer, Euphoria) is a budding designer and Snow is bucking for the Plinth Prize and entry into university. At The Academy (it’s always “The Academy”) he’s playing politics with opportunistic classmate Clemensia Dovecote (Ashley Liao), principled stealth buddy Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andrés Rivera) and a professor who hates him, Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage, bringing more gravitas than the film deserves), co-creator of the original games that pit kids, tributes, against each other for entertainment in an annual battle royale (did I say that?).
With a complacent Capitol District population and falling TV ratings, Highbottom and head game-maker Dr Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis) decide to mix things up for the 10th Annual Games and assign each tribute a Capitol mentor. Lucy Gray draws Snow, a better man than the one we know as president, and the two get all horned up for each other. Still, treachery, rage, backstabbing and murder ensue.
Right up to the last moments of the Games, Songbirds & Snakes is terrifically entertaining (even if Zegler and her enigmatic accent leaves a lot to the imagination for “tough” and “shady”). Davis is in full Viola mode (she’s the year’s best movie villain) and in a pitch-perfect impression of Stanley Tucci, Jason Schwartzman makes Lucretius “Lucky” Flickerman the prototype for all oily game show MCs to follow. But when the Games end, Lucy Gray goes home, and Snow is relegated to Peacekeeper, the film goes right off a damn cliff and lands in Flabbytown. Without the tension of the Capitol in-fighting, the violence of the arena, and the retro-futuristic production design (by Uli Hanisch) that screams “We all psychotic!” Songbirds & Snakes plays like a standard YA (duh) romance about the cute girl in an indie band and the cute rich guy her friends don’t trust. I’ve seen Step Up, thanks. And Pretty in Pink. And GOAT, Dirty Dancing. Without the Capitol conflict the film is just dull bricklaying. Sejanus and Snow’s increasingly cavernous philosophical divide is where the drama is, but true to form we get lovesick fools in the woods, the way THG 1-4 leaned into its tepid love triangle.
Lawrence leaves plenty of breadcrumbs that will come to have meaning – jabberjays, mockingjays, katniss flowers, Tigris – but not so many that they come off as tacky fanservice, so that’s a bonus. But he and co-writers Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt leave all the good shit about the numbing rot of reality TV, the creation and weaponisation of celebrity and the fine line between good and evil on the table; the lingering message of the movie is one about the struggle of pretty people to get together. Hey, Francis: less singing, more radicalising. — DEK