Not Hungry Enough

Rating: 6/10 (22 September 2012)

A safe, workmanlike adaptation of a much stronger book. The book was told in Katnis's interior monologue. The film had to be opened up so that it could be shown, using Ceasar and Seneca as expositors. (Seneca's death was cleverly done.) But, as many have pointed out, the story was heavily sanitized to get a PG-13 rating. Since author and co-writer Collins is an experienced screenwriter for tween TV, I assume she knew the choices she was making. Here's a partial list:
Haymitch drinks a bit much but is not introduced as an apparently non-functioning alcoholic.
No avoxes.
As to violence, the initial melee at the Cornucopia was OK -- Katniss's own impressions were fragmentary as she grabbed the backpack and ran. Glimmer's screaming death from tracker jacker stings was ghastly enough. But Rue's death was seriously blanded down. In the book Katniss has to watch her be speared, she shoots the D1 boy in the throat, and she watches him drown in his own blood with angry satisfaction. Not in the movie -- it's quick cuts and clean wounds, and an Old Hollywood death scene. As the emotional high point of the story, it called for Private Ryan.
We don't see Katniss overcoming her disgust to clean the pus out of Peeta's wound, and Peeta doesn't lose his leg.
Biggest problem is no hunger. It's not just that Lawrence looked nothing like a 16 year old who's been underfed her whole life. It's that in the book food and hunger are central to Katniss's view of the world. She constantly thinks about both. At home she's glad to get a bowl of wild dog soup when she can. Bread is her first connection to Peeta. What impresses her about the Capitol is the endless supply of exquisite things to eat. She comprehends its wealth by figuring out how much time and effort it would take her to duplicate one dish. In her interview, saying that she's most impressed by the lamb stew projects her as a real country girl from the boondocks. In the arena she starts out half dead and delirious from thirst, spends most of her time hunting, and is always aware of exactly how much food she has on hand. She bonds with Rue over their shared experience of hunger back home -- Rue gets to eat a whole groosling leg for the only time in her short life. D11 thanks her for Rue's funeral with bread. None of that makes it through the adaptation. It could have, with a little more time at the Hob, some different dialog, and with gaze and reaction shots. Without the hunger, it's a much more routine adventure story than it should have been.