The Hunger Games: Book vs. Movie

Movies and Books: The Hunger Games

**Warning: This post contains spoilers about both the book and movie adaptation of The Hunger Games! Proceed with caution!**

We say it so often that it's become a cliche: "I enjoyed the movie, but the book was so much better!"

Although books and movies each have their own set of pros and cons, we can't help but be disappointed when we feel that the movie adaptation of a beloved book fails to live up to our expectations (though that rarely stops us from excitedly buying tickets to the movie anyway!).

Suzanne Collins' hit series The Hunger Games is perhaps the best loved young adult series this side of Twilight. The film adaptation of the first in the series broke records this weekend, raking in over $150 million dollars in the United States. Below, I break down the differences between the book and the movie to show each medium's advantages and disadvantages. Once again, this post is rife with spoilers!

Life in District 12

Book: Collins spends a significant portion of the first third of the book detailing the coal-rich, impoverished district that is Katniss Everdeen's home. The griminess and starvation of the majority of the residents is palpable on the page, and Collins takes her time describing Katniss' daily life: her relationship with her mother and sister, her friendship with fellow hunter Gale, her illicit trading at The Hob, and the differences between the wealthier residents of District 12 and the starving poor.

Movie: The film envisions District 12 as similar to Depression Era United States: women in plain, practical dresses, men going off the coal mine, etc. And although the film conveys the poverty of District 12, I didn't get the sense of absolute desperation that I got from the books--the fact that an illness or injury that leaves you unable to work might mean imminent starvation for your entire family. Seeing District 12 onscreen was thrilling, no doubt, but it was surely whitewashed from the horrors conjured up by Collins.

Point: Book

Katniss' Thoughts and Psychological Process

Book: The book is written from Katniss' point of view, which gives the reader plenty of insight into her thoughts and feelings. We see everything from her growing anger at The Capitol over the indignity of the Games, to her mixed feelings toward Peeta. In the book, for example, Katniss believes Peeta's romantic feelings for her are entirely a strategy for winning sponsors and thus, the Games. Her feelings toward Peeta change and evolve over the book, ranging from annoyance, to distrust, to betrayal, to affection.

Movie: The filmmakers wisely stay away from using voice overs (I am not a fan of voice overs in movies generally) to convey Katniss' thoughts. Instead, the movie focuses on action and plot points, rather than Katniss' psychological state at any given moment. This definitely takes something away from the emotional experience of reading the books and seeing Katniss transform. However, Jennifer Lawrence, who plays Katniss in the movie, does an excellent job of conveying terror, suspicion, and in some cases, love (especially for little Rue).

Point: Book, although the film is definitely helped by Lawrence's excellent performance.

Secondary Characters

Book: Although Katniss and Peeta are the main characters, Collins' novel is filled with colorful (literally!) supporting characters, such as drunken mentor Haymitch Abernathy, perky District 12 escort Effie Trinket, and TV personality Caesar Flickerman. The supporting characters often provide comic relief in the book, and either serve as mentors and helpers to Katniss, or, in the case of the other Tributes, adversaries.

Movie: This is one area where the movie really succeeded. The supporting characters in the film adaptation are perfectly cast and light up the screen. I was especially impressed by Stanley Tucci's performance as the gregarious Caesar Flickerman and Lenny Kravitz's (yes, him!) performance as Katniss' wonderful, warm stylist Cinna. The supporting characters are excellent foils to Katniss and Peeta (who, being from District 12 and in constant danger of dying during the Games, are often introverted and grave). They bring humor, color, and fun to an otherwise (understandably) grim tale.

Point: Movie

The Actual Hunger Games 

Book: One thing the book dwells on is how hungry and thirsty Katniss is and how much time she spends looking for food during the Games. This detail is taken for granted in the film, which focuses on more exciting (and violent) action sequences. But the suffering Katniss endures during the Games is so much more intense in the books. Additionally, the descriptions of the terrifying obstacles the Gamemakers place in the Games, such as the Tracker Jacker wasps and the Muttations at the very end are so much scarier in the book than on the silver screen.

Movie: The film faithfully adapts all the major deaths and occurrences from the Hunger Games, from Rue's death to Katniss blowing up the other Tributes' food. But even on the big screen the terror and excitement I felt while reading the book was never fully replicated. This is especially true at the end when Katniss, Peeta, and Cato are chased by the Muttations. In the book, these werewolf-like creatures are genetically engineered to resemble the fallen Tributes, making the attack all the more psychologically horrifying. In the film, they're still scary, but not quite to the same extent.

Point: Book

Take away: The Hunger Games movie is a great film and is very faithful to Collins' novel. I will definitely see the second and third movies when they come out and am looking forward to seeing Katniss' budding revolutionary tendencies and love triangle with Gale and Peeta unfold on the big screen. However, there is no substitute for the power of imagination while reading a novel. On the page, everything was more intense: sadder, gorier, grimier, scarier, more emotional. While the film is entertaining and fun, Collins' dystopic novel (the first in a trilogy) is the far more satisfying pop culture snack.

Movie: 3.5 out of 5 stars

Book: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Some Stuff I've Read/Watched Lately

Movies and Books: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Le Havre, Lady Terminator, The Leftovers

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy


I read a review of this film that said "I had no idea what was going on, but I still loved it". That pretty much sums up my viewing experience as well. Luckily, I had Wikipedia to prepare me for this dense and detailed film. Armed with the synopsis, I was able to follow the plot well enough: Gary Oldman plays George Smiley, a man employed in the top echelon of British Intelligence (an elite group of men known as "the Circus") in the early 1970's. Smiley's mentor and boss, Control (John Hurt), who is the head of British Intelligence, has been collecting evidence of a mole within the Circus who is feeding information to the Soviets. After a mishap involving an intelligence exchange in Hungary, Control and Smiley are forced out of Intelligence and Control has a heart attack. Smiley is left to continue Control's work of rooting out the mole.


The title refers to the nicknames Control gives the top men in the Circus: there's Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), aka "Tinker"; Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Tailor"; Roy Bland (Ciaran Hands), "Soldier"; and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), "Poor Man". It's up to Smiley, with the help of another agent, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), and a young intelligence officer, Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), to discover who the "Spy" of the group is.

There is a lot going on in the movie, and the filmmakers don't dumb anything down for the audience's sake. I followed the film about 70 percent of the time, but even when I lost track of all the details, I still pretty much managed to keep from getting completely lost. And the film is more than the details of the story--it's about the mood of Cold War Europe as well. 70's England, at the height of the Cold War, appears grey and dirty. The characters' homes and offices are poorly lit and sparsely furnished. There's a scene that takes place during an office Christmas party reminded me of Mad Men--albeit a dingier, far less glamorous version of Mad Men. The men of the Circus have very paltry lives outside of their jobs (however, a major plot point concerns Smiley's cheating wife), and Ricki Tarr says at one point that he wants to get out of Intelligence: "I'm not like you [men]. I want to have a family." These supposedly privileged men are bound to their careers and their country, and because of this they often come across as boring and grey as the scenery. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is hardly a "sexy" or conventionally exciting spy movie, but it is taut, thrilling, and very cerebral--a treat for those who enjoy "brain candy" type films.

4 out of 5 stars

***

Le Havre


On the opposite side of the spectrum from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is  Le Havre. Where Tinker Tailor is intellectual and challenging, Le Havre is simple and light. Le Havre is about an elderly shoeshiner, Marcel Marx, living in Le Havre (a port city in France) who takes in an African boy who is heading to London illegally. Marcel takes the boy in and hides him from the authorities until the young man can safely make his way to his family in England. That's it. Le Havre is what I might call aggressively pleasant--even the mean, wily police officer who is on the African boy's tail turns out to be a big softie in the end. There is no actual discussion of the ethical dilemmas that illegal immigration produces. Basically, the movie is: old man lives a pleasant life that is pleasantly disrupted by a pleasant (and almost entirely silent) immigrant until the situation is pleasantly resolved and everything goes back to normal. It was cute; there were some laughs; but overall the film was as light and unsubstantial as air.


2.5 out of 5 stars

***

Lady Terminator


Whoa. This movie. Lady Terminator is a bizarrely awful (and I mean in that in the best possible way) film that came to my local artsy theatre as a midnight movie. My friend had been talking about it for months, saying that is was the greatest bad movie since The Room, so of course I had to check it out. Well, she wasn't just blowing smoke. Lady Terminator is insane and so unintentionally funny, you actually may die laughing.

The film opens up with a sea queen who takes on a series of lovers. When they fail to satisfy her in bed, an eel comes out of her vagina and bites their manhood off. None of that previous sentence was a typo: Eel vagina. Bitten off manhood. When the queen finally meets a man who is able to tame the vagina eel (he removes it and it becomes a dagger), she is furious and vows revenge on the man's great-granddaughter. Cut to three generations later: a young, sexy anthropologist goes in search of information about the legendary sea queen, but ends up falling into the sea and becoming possessed with the sea queen's...essence? ghost? In any case, an eel goes into her vagina and she becomes immortal and goes around killing everyone in sight: either with the vagina eel, a machine gun, or frickin' lasers that shoot out of her frickin' eyeballs.

You know what, let's just stop right there. Lady Terminator is beyond explanation. It just exists of a plane of its own. If you get a chance to see it, please do. You won't regret it. Eel vagina!

1 star for quality, dubbing, acting, music, costumes, and script
5 stars for entertainment value

"First she mates...then she terminates!"



***

The Leftovers 
by Tom Perrotta

I had been meaning to get around to Tom Perrotta's latest novel for months. When I finally picked it up, I read half of it in one sitting. Perrotta is a master of satirizing suburbia and all the little tempests in teapots that go on in suburban life. His last novel, The Abstinence Teacher focused on the culture war between evangelical Christians and neo-liberal parents over the topic of sex education. His novel before that, Little Children, was about what happens when a registered sex offender moves into a family-friendly neighborhood. In The Leftovers, Perrotta aims for a more existential subject: the Rapture. Or, rather, a "Rapture-like" event where thousands of people around the world disappear into thin air simultaneously: atheists, Christians, Muslims, Jews, gay people, sinners and saints, and people of every nation, color, and creed alike. Perrotta doesn't bother to explain what this Rapture-like event is or what it means--instead he focuses on how those left behind react.

Don't worry. The premise sounds familiar, but this novel is no Tim LaHaye Christian propaganda. In Perrotta's vision of post-Sudden Departure (the name the characters give the unexplained event) small town America, there's plenty of room for bizarre religion fanaticism and existential angst, but there are no "right" or "wrong" answers. Some of the characters find themselves drawn to cults and weird holy men, while others just want to get on with some semblance of a "normal" life after the Sudden Departure. As time goes by, both science and religion fail to offer up any explanations about what happened during the Departure, and the characters are forced to confront the moral and relational choices they've made since the event.

Perrotta, who is one of my favorite authors, walks a fine line between acidic satire and gentle understanding. He has a real respect for his characters--none of them are monsters or caricatures. Even though some of them do boneheaded and mean things, Perrotta makes sure the reader understands and empathizes with their motives. If you haven't read any of Perrotta's work, I highly recommend him. His view of the human condition is realistic and not always complimentary, but always hopeful.

4.5 out of 5 stars

Warm Hearts and Cold Beds

Books: The Uncoupling

Meg Wolitzer's 2011 novel The Uncoupling mixes magical realism and suburban dysfunction. The novel centers on the students and faculty of Eleanor Roosevelt High School (known lovingly as "Elro") in Stellar Plains, NJ. A vibrant and intimidating new drama teacher, Fran Heller, is hired at Elro and decides to put on Lysistrata, the play by Aristophanes about a woman who leads the women of Ancient Greece to withhold sex from their husbands until the men agree to end the Peloponnesian War.


Soon, a "cold wind" begins to blow through Stellar Plains, causing the women of the community to lose sexual desire (and romantic desire). Teenage girls break up with their boyfriends, young women stop sleeping around for fun, and night after night, the wives of Stellar Plains turn away from their husbands.

It's not long before bitterness and sadness (mostly of the part of the men) begins to build to a fever pitch in the community. The men of Stellar Plains are literally begging the women to take them back, love them, and have sex with them again. I won't reveal what happens at the climax (heh) of The Uncoupling, but I will say that it's difficult to tell who triumphs in the end--the men, the women, or both.

[Side note: There's only one gay couple in liberal Stellar Plains, and the spell doesn't affect them. Apparently, there are no lesbians. Wolitzer gets a C- on her LGBTQA inclusiveness]

Wolitzer is excellent at the "realism" part, and not so excellent at the "magical" part. She masterfully creates a suburban world and high school that has just enough fictional elements to make it seem even more real, if that makes sense. She sprinkles made-up pop culture references (a band called "The Lungs" is named-dropped; the students of Elro are all into an MMORPG called "Farrest") that sound real, even though she just created them for the book. Wolitzer is great at getting the small details of suburban and high school life just right. I could see clearly the halls of Elro and what all the teachers and students looked like.

Wolitzer also gets the feelings that the characters go through. Every couple affected by the spell reacts differently: a passionate couple argue fiercely; an older couple who have already given up on sex give up on it even further and grow in resentment; a couple with a solid, happy marriage simply become bewildered and then resigned when the wife becomes repulsed at the thought of being touched. Each couple's current sex life is key to how they react when sex is suddenly off the table.

As far as the "magical" part, it's clear that the whole "cold wind" thing is just a construct to move the plot forward. The fact that it's supernatural (as opposed to a coincidence or a collective decision by the women) is taken for granted and then barely mentioned until the end. Why include this element of magic and then never comment on it or explain it? It's clear than the drama teacher, Fran Heller, has something to do with it. At the end it is revealed that, yes, the spell "follows" Fran, but she does not control it. She's not a witch or a gypsy with magical powers or anything like that. I thought this "explanation" of the spell was lame and flimsy.

Wolitzer is obviously more interested in the politics of what would happen if women collectively denied men sex. But even this intriguing scenario isn't examined very closely. The women of Stellar Plains start denying men sex, the men get upset--individual relationships get tense, but the community as a whole remains unaltered. When the spell is broken, most relationships are mended and are even better, and hotter, than before. This conclusion was a bit of an anti-climatic let down.

Overall, Wolitzer is great at describing people and relationships. If this book was anything, it was realistic, and the details of the characters' everyday lives were fascinating. Wolitzer is not so great at making a point. I read the book and wondered, "Did I learn anything about male/female relationships or men and women's sexuality?" No. No, I did not. I didn't feel like I wasted my time, because The Uncoupling was very well-written and entertaining. It just felt a bit lacking in the end, like Wolitzer had the opportunity to say something interesting and controversial...but chose not to.

I'd recommend The Uncoupling to readers who like literary fiction, specifically about adults living in suburbia. If you like Tom Perrotta, you'll probably dig The Uncoupling.

3.5 out of 5 stars

Revenge of the Nerd

Books: Bossypants

Tina Fey's hilarious and light memoir, Bossypants, has been on the New York Times bestseller list for 12 weeks now. Currently, it's hovering at #5 on the list of bestselling hardcover fiction--one slot above Ann Coulter's latest screed, Demonic, I might gloatingly add.

I'm very happy about the visibility of Fey's memoir for a number of reasons. Unlike some people who are famous for being famous (and go on to write irrelevant memoirs about their irrelevant famousness), Fey is actually a multi-talented, hard-working, and very intelligent woman. In Bossypants she starts from the beginning, describing her middle class upbringing (the chapter about her father, Don Fey, is excellent), her dorky, boyfriend-less years at the University of Virginia, her first job, and her time with Second City. We learn that Fey is, in some respects, as average as you or me. She truly was a dork growing up, working at a community theatre camp and dealing with unrequited crushes*. Fey is in turn modest about her success, suggesting that she lucked into certain circumstances, while also giving off an air of sarcasm toward those who would mock or detract her (in one chapter she responds directly to trollish online comments about her). She never comes off as bitter, though she is definitely wry.

Fey goes on to write about her ill-fated honeymoon, her start as a writer and eventual performer on Saturday Night Live, her experiences as a mother (the section about pumping breast milk while watching Entourage is not to be missed!), and, of course, Sarah Palin. Fey's insights into what actually happens "behind the scenes" in showbiz removes the glamour and reveals the surprising ordinariness of Fey's work.

Although Fey avoids political statements (and is diplomatic--quite diplomatic--toward Palin), she does discuss feminism quite a bit. I liked this. Fey is a rare person in the spotlight who is an "out" feminist and actually uses the word. She discusses being part of a number of "boys' clubs", where she was treated respectfully and equally as compared to other environments where she was subject to explicit "institutionalized gender norm nonsense" (at Second City they told her that no one would want to watch a sketch starring two women). So Fey is not railing against the patriarchy, or anything like that, since she didn't experience as many setbacks because of her gender as one might think. However, she's not shy in pointing out the subtle unfairness and sexism women face as mothers and in their careers. She even deconstructs the famous Sarah Palin/Hillary Clinton sketch she and Amy Poehler performed, pointing out that it was less about politics and more about the ways women in the political sphere are condescended to and mocked. Fey handles all this discussion of feminism and sexism with humor and a clear-eyed perspective. She calls a spade a spade, but never exaggerates to make her point.

Overall, Bossypants is consistently funny and interesting. Fey comes off as the real deal: modest, but not falsely so; warm, yet pleasantly sarcastic; intelligent, but not dryly academic. She's the woman you meet and instantly want to be friends with. I am in love with this woman.

4.5 out of 5 stars

*Did you know--Tina Fey not only didn't have a boyfriend in high school or college, but she lost her virginity at age 24 to the man she ended up marrying. See also: Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks and author of Superstud: Or How I Became a 24-Year-Old Virgin. Seems as though some late bloomers in romance often become successful in later life.                                                                                                                      

Read this too. Just, seriously, read it.

Southern Inhospitality

Books: Georgia Bottoms

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

So I guess there is a sub-genre of literature that can be called "Southern Lit". Everything from the Sookie Stackhouse books (I am an avid fan) to books by Joshilyn Jackson, Rebecca Walker, and Fannie Flagg, to more classic fare such as Flannery O'Conner and Thomas Wolfe. These books "take the pulse" of the South and capture the sultry heat, the slow pace of life, and the less savory aspects of the culture of Dixie.



Georgie Bottoms falls squarely into this category. Mark Childress made his name as an author of southern sensibilities with his 1994 novel Crazy in Alabama (since made into a movie starring Melanie Griffith) and more recently with One Mississippi in 2007. I expected to like Georgia Bottoms a lot, and indeed, I was entertained. But the characters are so loathsome in their selfish, two-faced, mind-bogglingly racist attitudes that it was hard to  care for, let alone identify with a single character. I wonder if Childress was simply making a blanket statement about Southerners--that they are liars, hypocrites, and so self-absorbed that Scarlett O'Hara herself would be shocked. But it seems that Childress, a Southerner himself, would be able to paint a more sympathetic--or at least nuanced--portrait of small-town Southern life. Or maybe Childress was just trying to create a main character and secondary characters that were realistic and far from saintly. I'm not sure.

Georgia Bottoms is the name of the main character. She is a Southern lady of a certain age (mid-thirties), unmarried, beautiful, and living in the small town of Six Points, Alabama. In order to get by, Georgia has not one, not, two, not three--but SIX beaus (one for every day of the week, except Monday) who she entertains in exchange for "small gifts, freely given". When one of these men, the Baptist minister Eugene Hendrix, threatens to expose Georgia, she must do everything she can to keep her affairs private, or risk losing her livelihood--and her reputation.

The book has strange pacing. It begins in September of 2001, when Georgia's annual September luncheon is ruined by some business in New York City with some buildings falling down. Everyone is glued to their televisions and Georgia honestly wonders why everyone cares so much about these people in New York--these yankees--more than her luncheon. Selfish, yes, but I can relate. My first thought after I heard the news on 9/11 was that I hoped we'd get out of school early. It wasn't until much later that the gravity of the day's events sunk in.

Then the book suddenly skips to 2005. Georgia's life really is about to be blown apart by the arrival of a young, black man on Georgia's doorstop. This young man, as the reader can guess early on, is Georgia's half-black son she gave birth to when she was still a teenager. She never told anyone, and although she sent money to the boy's grandmother every month, she wanted no contact. A white lady with a secret black son would be quite a scandal even in 2005. This plot line is the meat of the book, and I have to say, I was put off by the barrage of racism. Georgia is decent to her son, despite abandoning him as a baby, but her attitude towards blacks is incredibly condescending. After her failed September luncheon, Georgia drives around town, looking to give all the food she prepared away. She tries to give the food to Madeline Roudy, a black pediatrician, whom she did not invite to the luncheon for fear of upsetting her extremely racist mother (Georgia's mother, not Madeline's). Of course, Madeline is incredulous at Georgia attempting to give her the uneaten food--and Georgia, for the life of her, doesn't understand why Madeline is so ungracious!

Later in the book, Georgia's mother, who is suffering the early stages of dementia, continually calls Nathan, Georgia's son, the n-word and threatens him with a pellet gun. I was thinking to myself, "is this really how the deep south is?" I've been assured by people who have lived in parts of Mississippi and Alabama that yes, this is the way it is--at least for certain small towns and certain generations of people. Ugh. The racism, sexism, and downright fear of anything "outside" the confines of the small town was layered on so thick, I thought the book was almost a parody of southern life. But I think Childress is attempting to lovingly criticize the culture he was born into. For me (and I'm no prejudice-free saint myself), it was off-putting.

Georgia Bottoms is a quick and entertaining read--however, I expected it to be fun, hilarious, and light-hearted. With the cruel, small-minded characters (a few of whom learn lessons, but for the most part don't change), I couldn't really find anything to laugh about.

3 out of 5 stars