I was impressed by The Hunger Games, a well-paced, well-acted and intelligent sci-fi adventure fable for tweens – and for the rest of us, too.
Since I apparently live under a rock, I was unaware of the source material, the popular and acclaimed young adult fiction trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The only reason I saw The Hunger Games was to accompany The Wife, who had read the first Hunger Games book. I hadn’t even seen the trailer, so I went in totally blind.
The story is set in the future, where several generations after a rebellion, an authoritarian government plucks teenagers from the formerly rebellious provinces to fight to the death in a forest. It’s all broadcast on reality TV for the entertainment of the masses. Children killing children – it doesn’t get much harsher than that.
Jennifer Lawrence plays the heroine, a poor Appalachian girl who volunteers to compete in place of her little sister. Lawrence starred in Winter’s Bone, my pick for the best movie of 2010. Here she carries the movie with her performance as an incredibly determined and resourceful girl. Her character is completely candid and unfiltered. This creates a moment that is all the more powerful when she has to pull off smarmy inauthenticity for an insipid TV interview.
Stanley Tucci is brilliant as the oleaginous reality TV host – it’s an Oscar-worthy performance.