I’ve done a couple of movie reviews in the past, but I have recently decided to add movie and TV reviews as a regular part of my blog. The reason I hesitated is that I almost never get a chance to see a movie in the theater. But then I thought, how many people are there like me out there? Just thumbing through Netflix on a Friday night, trying to figure out what might be good? Most of what I share with you will probably be available for Netflix instant viewing, or otherwise available on the Internet.
Ironically, after saying all that, I’m going to kick this new segment off with a movie I recently got a chance to watch in the theater. 🙂
I reviewed the book version of Catching Fire a few years ago, and I had some pretty harsh things to say about it. There were things I didn’t like about the original Hunger Games novel, but overall I found it to be a compelling psychological story with a neat twist. Catching Fire did not work for me as a follow-up, and Mockingjay failed utterly. So I honestly wasn’t sure I would ever see Catching Fire in the theater or out of it. But then one Sunday I went to the movies with a friend, and five options later I said, “… and if nothing else, we could go see Catching Fire.”
Well, the movie was just plain awesome. I was stunned. Flummoxed. Confuzzled. How could I enjoy a movie so much when it was based on a book I didn’t care for at all?
But the answer hit me about halfway through — the movie fixed the #1 problem with the book. The point of view. Katniss is a terrible point of view character. She may be the eye of the storm, but she takes no actions, makes no decisions, and ultimately everything is done to her rather than by her. She is not the key decision maker. Which makes her an odd choice for a first-person narrator. Also, the present tense style in all three books felt very passive. And to top it all off, I never felt connected to her as a character.
All that changed in the movie! First of all, I finally have the answer to the question people are always asking me about my own books: “Who would play Cassie Scot in a movie version of the books?” Jennifer Lawrence! That gal is a terrific, emotive actress. She made me feel things about Katniss I never could feel in the book. She showed me a scared, uncertain, lonely character doing her best to survive.
But it was more than that, because as I mentioned Katniss wasn’t the primary decision maker in this story, which made the point of view tricky in the book. In the movie, seeing her from the outside, and also getting looks into the private headquarters of the president, I saw forces in action around her. I saw that this was a story about a world on the bring of rebellion, fueled by the symbol they had made out of Katniss. But ultimately, she was an excuse. The president didn’t get that, but the government’s evil deeds had finally caught up with them.
I am actually looking forward to Monkingjay now, a book I gave a generous 2 stars to. 🙂