Overall impression: like the book, not a
necessary prequel but well done anyway, and has my respect in both cases for not trying to tell the same story as before but through the shift of perspective and central character trying something genuinely new. Aspects of it might even work better on film than in the book. Not exactly in the same way the
Hunger Games movies benefited from being able to get out of Katniss' headspace - i.e. they could show scenes Katniss in the books can't witness but is told about later - ; here, it's more that the film's young Corialanus Snow without doing anything different than his book counterpart has an ambiguity his book counterpart doesn't really. I mean, in both cases we know it's future Dictator Snow, and thus we do know how he ends up. But to quote from
my impressions of the novel three years ago, in the book even if you didn't already known he'll be the main antagonist of the Hunger Games, I don't think the narrative (which unlike in the Katniss novels is third person - we're still in young Coriolanus' headspace, but one step removed) ever gave me the sense that this particular character would make other choices than those he did. Whereas in the movie, Tom Blyth's performance - which is superb, btw, definitely a young actor worth keeping an eye on - manages to make it believable there is genuine conflict there in some situations, and that he had the capacity of choosing otherwise. That he doesn't, in the end (which makes perfect sense within universe not because this is future President Snow but based on what's been established about this particular young man before), is thus far more emotionally gripping.
The casting is generally superb. (Including looks wise. I still think the original films had too many male blondes (in the first movie, I had sometimes trouble keeping Peeta and Cato apart, and in
Catching Fire, I was miffed Finnick Odair ended up as yet aother blond guy); here, perhaps because young Coriolanus is blond, everyone else except his cousin Tigris is not.) Viola Davis has the time of her life chewing scenery as Volumnia Gaul, mad scientist and game maker extraordinaire, a villain in the gloriously over the top way that doesn't avoid them also being scary as hell like Emperors Caligula in
I, Claudius and Cartagia in
Babylon 5. Peter Dinklage as Dean Casca Highbottom is
Severus Snape if Harry Potter was a future supervillain appropriately broody, self-loathing and hostile, though I have to say, when the final reveal re: the reason why he treated young Snow the way he did came, despite the fact you understood where he was coming from and the enormity of it, plus by this time young CS had left moral ambiguity behind himself, I still thought, as with Snape: you were the adult here, and that wasn't this kid's fault. (Yes, even if the kid is a future dictator.)
Of the young bunch, the standout to me other than Tom Blyth was Josh Andrés Rivera as Sejanus Plinth (more about him in a moment). Rachel Zegler as Lucy Gray was good, and no, not just when she was singing; the movie leaned into the fact that Lucy (very much as opposed to Katniss) was a practised performer as a musician who knew how to play the crowds which is the one thing she has going for her going into the arena, and kept it neatly ambiguous how much she was or wasn't playing Coriolanus the entire time (without judging her for it, I hasten to add - she's facing a gruesome death and needs all the hellp she can get), with Zegler conveying that possibility in her expressions. (Sidenote: Suzanne Collins is one of the few genre authors I know who gives the ability to be manipulative not just to evil characters - in the
Hunger Games, the first character we meet who is really good at that - and who uses it for good - is Peeta. In
Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, it's more complicated in that young Snow of course is also a budding manipulator, though in a different way.) But Lucy Gray by the nature of the story told remains in the end something of a mystery and elusive - which is another reason why comparisons to Katniss don't really apply, also she's not the central character nor meant to be, though she's very important to the story - whereas Sejanus
is explored and the audience does get to know him fully. Josh Andrés Rivera has the required intensity, and plays off Tom Blyth very well. Hunter Schafer as Tigris is solid; her best scene gets me in spoilery territory,
( so I'll say something beneath the cut ).
Other differences between book and film is that I feel the film removed some of the more heavy-handed signallers. In the book, you can tell young Coriolanus is nearing the line of no return on the villain threshold as much because he now dislikes music (in Suzanne Collins' novels, only good guys like music, which as I said in my book review, between Hitler & Richard Wagner, Stalin & Mozart and a couple of other examples snaps me out of my suspension of disbelief) and can't stand nature. Whereas in the film, he might not sing along but is clearly still captured by the performances, and he might not be thrilled by the flies but leaves it at swatting at them, and there's no "nature: I hate it", all of which helps putting the emotional weight more on his actual line crossing, one of which has happened when he does what he does involving a certain recording, and the other happens in the scene following his "three is enough for me" statement, to put it cryptically for newbies. And the film does trust its lead actor to get across the transition in both cases without any spoken monologue or anything like that. Kudos to young Mr. Blyth, like I said. Especially since unlike the novel, he really makes you feel that even this late, Snow
could turn around, and that him not doing so is not inevitable but a choice. (Which is on him. Heightening the ambiguity and excusing are two very different things.)
Lastly: Because this story's setting is mainly the Capitol (still recovering from the war but way better off than the districts, having inflicted the Hunger Games on the Districts but not yet being so comletely callous that most of them seem unable to see the monstrosity), and the excellerating readiness to prioritize being entertained above any leftover compassion between enemies, it underlines that the downtrodden districts aren't actually the parallel to the viewing audience - the Capitol is. And getting that across might in itself justify the existence of a prequel.
In conclusion: whether this film will work for you the way it did for me is probably dependent on whether you're okay of spending two hours focused on the not-yet-but-getting-there villain of the Hunger Games. I was, and so these were two hours well spent for me. Your mileage might differ.
P.S. Seriously though, as
Westside Story already proved, Rachel Zegler has a gorgeous voice, and I want all those songs.
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