The time has finally arrived for me to get into the topic of YA (Young Adult) franchise films. Basically, a genre of books written with teens and young adults tastes in mind, the mid-2000s saw a huge boom in film adaptations with the massive success of the Twilight series. Given my not-so-very-nice opinion about Twilight, I was hesitant to say the least about giving anything even remotely YA a shot. I’m honestly surprised I put my negative bias away long enough to watch The Hunger Games the year it came out. I already knew it was a ripoff of the 1987 dystopian thriller Running Man and the Japanese cinematic classic Battle Royale. Yet, despite all odds not being in its favor, I sat through The Hunger Games…and really enjoyed it. Oh, I still fully know it’s derivative, cheesy, and predictable. But something about it just works, even enough for me to read the novels afterward.
I’m actually almost glad now I haven’t yet read the Hunger Games prequel, A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Taking place decades before the original novels, the story centers around an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) aka the main villain of The Hunger Games, before he rose to power or even turned completely evil. With his family’s fortune being lost in the war, Coriolanus is desperate to do what it takes to help them thrive. He is given that opportunity when a generous grant being offered by his school is at stake, but the catch is he must successfully mentor a District tribute for the Hunger Games. When he meets his assigned tribute, the charming Lucy Grey Baird (Rachel Zegler), Coriolanus begins to actually care about her survival. Now, he must find a balance between his feelings for Lucy and his drive for success.
Ok, this is going to get me banned from most nerd circles out there, but here’s my hot take: this movie is what I wished the Star Wars prequels were more like. Snow’s eventual descent into evil closely mirrors that of Anakin Skwalker’s, complete with manipulative mentors, a kind-hearted love interest, and deep mommy issues. However, his journey, while only lasting a single film, learned from many of the mishaps the Star Wars prequels had.
The romance between the two attractive young leads was more organic and sincere than that of Anakin and Padme, or even Katniss and Peeta. I don’t know if it was a better script or just more chemistry between the two leads, but I was actually invested in their relationship, even knowing the foregone conclusion to it wasn’t going to be good. Also, the past world of Panam just felt much more connected to the eventual future events of the Hunger Games series. I loved the archaic nods to the technology we’ll eventually see commonplace in Panam by the time of Katniss Everdeen.
Sometimes the difference between a good and terrible YA film lies solely on how good the acting was. Thankfully, this film was blessed with a great cast. I’m not yet familiar with Tom Blythe, but thanks to his nuanced, yet effective choices as Coriolanus, I’m going to be looking at his career from now on. Rachel Zegler was a pretty solid casting choice for the songstress Lucy, as she is a very talented singer (as we’ve seen in Westside Story.) I may criticize a bit that while she’s certainly entertaining to watch, her acting still comes off as a bit “stagey”, and she may need more experience with acting on camera. Needless to say Peter Dinklage, who plays Coriolanus’s vindictive headmaster Caska Highbottom was great. When is he ever not? Also, I want to give a big shoutout to Viola Davis as Dr. Volumnia Gaul, the blatantly evil mad scientist overseeing The Hunger Games. She’s one of the best actresses of our time, and I’m so glad she gets an opportunity to let loose and completely ham it up with a character like this.
A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is still not without some flaws. Because it’s based off just one book, they were faced with a choice of splitting it like the last Hunger Games book adaptations, making one film and cutting a tremendous amount of needed context for length, or making one film with the story mostly in fact but making it two and a half hours long. While I’m glad they chose the last option, I could feel my fellow audience members grow restless as the length of the film started to really hit them. It is what it is. I would rather take too long of a movie than an overly abridged story or another split-up movie cash grab.
While the overall direction of this film had an upgrade in maturity to its predecessors, it was not without its moments of cheese, telling more than, showing, and ham-fisted drama. Again, I have to remind myself what genre we’re looking at here. It’s really difficult to have a YA anything without these elements present in a small way. Still, I would venture to say this is among the better examples of YA out there.
Look, I know these books and films aren’t exactly The Shawshank Redemption here. The genre of YA, even when dark and violent like The Hunger Games, is designed to be easily digestible to young readers as well as highly addictive. But I’m going to stop treating the ones I enjoy as mere “guilty pleasures,” and start giving them the same grace I give comic book films. Films like The Hunger Games: A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes just go to show that the genre has a lot to offer us, even if we’re a bit older than its intended audience.
