The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: Movie Review

As you may have heard, the new Hunger Games movie, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, has just been released. The movie is based on the prequel to the Hunger Games book series. I was very excited to have the chance to see it a few weeks ago; I thought it was so good! So let’s get into why-

Before I delve into details about the movie, here is a basic summary of the plot of the book/movie. So: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes takes place in Panem, during the tenth annual Hunger Games. It focuses primarily on the life of young Coriolanus Snow (who we see as the evil president in the series), and what caused him to go from a good, kind student and friend, into a terrible, manipulative being. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes displays themes about power, privilege, good vs. evil (and the line between them), along with the loss of innocence. It goes deeply into the motives and motivations of mainly Snow and Lucy Gray Baird (a tribute from District 12 who Snow has to mentor for the tenth Games), and leaves readers/viewers with a fascinating backstory to the Hunger Games.

One of the first things I noticed while watching this movie was that it was so closely related to the book, which a lot of movies don’t seem to capture. They barely altered the storyline, and kept every scene and character the way it was written by Suzanne Collins; it was so interesting to watch the book really come to life. Some parts definitely went faster than I thought they would, though. For example, a girl that goes to Coriolanus’ school, Clemensia, and tries to take credit for his ideas about the Games, seemed to play an important role in the book for much longer than in the movie. But this does makes sense considering they had to fit an extremely long book into a 2.5 hour movie, and didn’t substantially affect the pace of the movie.

Other than that, I thought the casting for The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was done very well; I could definitely see a likeness between older Snow from the first movies and the actor they hired to play the younger version of him. Also, Lucy Gray Baird, the tribute from District 12 that Snow has to protect, was almost just as I imagined her to be, and her personality that lies between good and evil was portrayed creatively.

Lastly, the movie was very impactful. I felt that it made viewers think deeply about why people take the actions that they do and why they become the people they become, especially through how Snow started out as a good a person as anyone else, but slowly became corrupted due to the world around him. And at other times, it was almost chilling the way the characters’ true intentions are revealed, or when we see that they were all using each other in different ways; Snow wanted to gain power and recognition from Lucy Gray, while she wanted to gain freedom and some of her own power from him.

TANMAYI DAKSHNAMOORTHY

Writer at The City Voice

Hi, my name is Tanmayi! I am a sophomore this year. I love the creative space - dance, art, reading, and writing. I also enjoy archery. And I’m always open to trying something new!