Editor’s note: Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal and Calendar Editor Caleb Wiseblood wrote Split Screen this week while Glen and Anna Starkey are away.
Young and ambitious Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth) is assigned as a mentor to Lucy Gray, an impoverished District 12 resident (Rachel Zegler) plucked to participate in the bloody Hunger Games. Together, Snow and Gray must strategize her survival in the televised games where kids battle to their deaths—and face the consequences of it. The film is a prequel set 64 years before the original Hunger Games trilogy. (158 min.)
Bulbul I once belonged to the prime target group for the Hunger Games book series. My friends and I devoured the Suzanne Collins novels early on in high school, and we eagerly caught the movie adaptations on the big screen toward the end of our school days. Eight years later, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes proves to be a powerful revisit of the Hunger Games universe. I’ve yet to read Collins’ fourth book, which was published in 2020, but its film version makes me want to grab a copy ASAP. The new prequel is the origin story of President Snow during the early days of the post-apocalyptic nation of Panem. Newcomer Tom Blyth charismatically portrays Snow, his compassion, willfulness, and hunger for power that eventually launches him into the ruthless and calculated dictator played by Donald Sutherland. Born into wealth that’s considerably diminished, 19-year-old Snow still lives in rarefied society while concealing his family’s near squalor. He and his upper-crust classmates get reluctantly paired with kids from the struggling neighboring districts who have to compete in the Hunger Games as punishment for revolting against the ruling Capitol. Acting as a mentor for defiant “songbird” Lucy Gray (Rachel Zegler), Snow is torn between orders to make her a spectacle, which could propel him into wealth, and doing the right thing by helping her live.
Caleb Going in, I knew this installment of the franchise featured a young version of Snow, but I didn’t realize he’d be its focus. The outcome is a surprisingly engrossing character study. I don’t think there’s a single scene in the film that is outside his point of view. We’re only ever introduced to other characters through his eyes, including Gray, who forms a plausible alliance with her mentor after being raffled at random into participating in the film’s titular death tournament. We also meet Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage), the Hunger Games’ original co-founder and dean of the academy Snow is enrolled at. Highbottom deliberately makes life harder for Snow seemingly based on a long-lasting vendetta he’s kept against the student’s deceased father. It’s like Severus Snape and Harry Potter all over again, but without hope of reconciliation. But Snow is not without a support system. The Hunger Games’ head gamemaker, Volumnia Gaul (Viola Davis), admires his tactfulness and overall approach to coaching Gray, who he treats more like an equal than death match fodder. Snow has a best friend at school too, Sejanus Plinth (Josh Andres Rivera), who also serves as a Hunger Games mentor, but a reluctant one who unashamedly denounces the games as barbaric.
Bulbul Snow’s story is split into three parts that span more than two and a half hours. The film does feel long at times but it’s a smooth, riveting watch. Yes, reading the books and watching the original trilogy will make for a richer viewing experience, but The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes works as a standalone movie. It’s jarring to see what the Hunger Games and Capitol rule used to look like and how far—and little—the two have progressed in terms of grandiosity, class consciousness, and warfare. I’m both impressed and relieved that the film stands the test of time and rests as an equal beside its three predecessors.
Caleb I might have given this Hunger Games entry a matinee rating without its third act, which elevated the film to full price for me. It’s a fascinating chapter on Snow’s time serving as a Peacekeeper—a buzz-cut foot soldier in the Capitol’s military—after a fall from grace. I wasn’t expecting to see this facet of Panem society explored, and it’s engaging to experience it through Snow’s perspective, especially with his future calling in mind. Villain origin stories have been trending for a while now, but I find the best of them refreshing compared to the onslaught of multi-character mash-up movies we’re used to. In a world oversaturated with one-note team-up flicks, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feels singular. Δ
Staff Writer Bulbul Rajagopal and Calendar Editor Caleb Wiseblood wrote Split Screen this week. Send comments to gstarkey@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Nov 23 – Dec 3, 2023.