The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1, the third entry in the Hunger Games Quadrilogy, will probably go down as the least popular entry in the series, but I bet it will be the one I end up liking the most. I certainly responded to it more favorably then the first two pictures. While it takes the series’ banal plotting, unimaginative sci-fi environments, and poorly staged action sequences to new levels of dullness, it explores heftier themes. Also, star Jennifer Lawrence finds more subtle layers of vulnerability and conviction in her character, the reluctant hero Katniss Everdeen.  I’m generally opposed to the contemporary practice of splitting a lengthy book into multiple films for a cinematic adaptation—a practice inaugurated with the final book of the Harry Potter franchise and taken to absurd extremes with the three Hobbit movies. Fans and studios claim these multi-picture adaptations are more faithful to the original books they’re based on but it’s difficult to see much artistic merit in this financially exploitative idea. I haven’t read any of Suzanne Collins’ novels, but I’m confident it is within the power of any halfway decent screenwriter to adapt the final book of her trilogy into a single film. Still, all The Hunger Games movies feel more like commercial products to me than works of art, so I’m not going to scold the producers for cashing in on two blockbusters for the price of one. Instead I’ll praise them for making their third installment a little deeper and less silly than its predecessors.

Perhaps I liked this picture because of an absence of elements that bothered me in the first films more than the presence of things I liked. Since the dystopian world of Panem and its various districts is set up in the first chapters, this movie features far less excessive and unimpressive exposition. The world of Mockingjay - Part 1 amounts to little more than a large underground bunker of dark, brown, cell-like structures and a few bombed out exteriors. The production values look stunningly cheap for a contemporary blockbuster, but this lack of impressive visuals actually works in the movie’s favor. Gone are the goofy costumes and hairstyles that made the first two movies so difficult to take seriously. In their place are pseudo-Communist jumpsuit uniforms and the occasional headdress. The supporting cast that worked so desperately hard to make the most of their limited screen time in the first couple of films (Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Lenny Kravitz, Toby Jones, and Donald Sutherland) are either gone or toned down to a far more acceptable level of performance. The new members of the supporting cast (Julianne Moore, Natalie Dormer, Wes Chatham, and Elden Henson) and the actors returning for this chapter as good-guys rather than villains (Jeffrey Wright, Sam Claflin, and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman) also play their characters with less mugging and more soul.

Of course, Jennifer Lawrence’s understated but emotionally engaging lead performance has always been the key ingredient to the film series’ success, but this time out she has more to play because her character has less to do. Since little actually happens in Mockingjay - Part 1, we get to spend time with Katniss as she deals with the fallout from what she was put through in the first two pictures. This movie is essentially just a set up for the series grand finale, but rather than mark time waiting around for the final battle royal, we witness Katniss coping with a kind of futuristic PTSD.  Though some of what she wrestles with feels contrived, much of it is insightful. For once, the main character of a sci-fi action blockbuster isn’t an indestructible superhero. Katniss is a child soldier damaged from having to fight to the death and getting conscripted into becoming a symbol encouraging others to take up arms. She’s a hero who doubts herself when she falters and breaks down when she fails. As a story, this third installment forgoes the simplistic individual survival tales of the first films in favor of a more political narrative. Its themes dealing with the uprising of oppressed masses feel far more relevant to the times these pictures are made in. Of course Mockingjay - Part 1 is still aimed squarely at the Young Adult demographic, but while it presents an adolescent understanding of political revolution, its ideas are not superficial. I can’t say the film rises to the level of great cinema, but it’s not as dismissible as I assumed.