The Hunger Games: Mock­ing­jay – Part 1

The Hunger Games has renewed its posi­tion as the god­moth­er of young adult movie dystopias. Mock­ing­jay Part 1 locks you into a rev­o­lu­tion­ary fight cham­ber with irre­sistible force, but allows human­i­ty and indi­vid­u­al­ism to bub­ble amid the destruc­tion while also essay­ing a crack­ing inter­pre­ta­tion of media in mod­ern war­fare. A film with the full title of The Hunger Games: Mock­ing­jay – Part 1 may sound too self-con­scious­ly like a fran­chise build­ing block to be best in series so far. And yet it is.

Suzanne Collins’ lit­er­ary tril­o­gy which forms the basis of these adap­ta­tions is, col­lec­tive­ly, a fine­ly lay­ered cre­ation with each book enmeshed with­in its pre­de­ces­sor in terms of plot and core moti­va­tion. With this in mind, Fran­cis Lawrence’s sec­ond film in the fran­chise (Gary Ross launched the games) is not the place for the unini­ti­at­ed to start. With that in mind, this review will con­tain ref­er­ences to the plot of Catch­ing Fire. If this con­sti­tutes a spoil­er, this is the time to step out­side – per­haps you will see a stag graz­ing in a for­est as hap­pens here dur­ing a rare moment of tranquility.

Kat­niss Everdeen (Jen­nifer Lawrence) – vic­tor of the hunger games and antag­o­nist of the mighty Capi­tol dic­ta­tor­ship – was last seen being res­cued by rebels and deposit­ed in Dis­trict 13. Said to have been bombed out of exis­tence, Dis­trict 13 sim­ply relo­cat­ed under­ground and has been dili­gent­ly prepar­ing for rev­o­lu­tion under the lead­er­ship of Pres­i­dent Alma Coin. Coin – a steel haired Julianne Moore – wears boil­er suits just like the rest of the troops, sig­ni­fy­ing the gen­uine spir­it of equal­i­ty. Clank­ing met­al in cell-like bed­rooms are a sen­so­ry fill-in for the miss­ing sun­light down in the gloom. Still, sub­jects are free, which marks them luck­i­er than the rebels in the oth­er 12 dis­tricts who are exe­cut­ed when­ev­er and wher­ev­er found thanks to the take-no-pris­on­ers war pol­i­cy of Pres­i­dent Snow (Don­ald Sutherland).

Con­flict is rag­ing with­out Kat­niss who is trapped in a night­mare spe­cif­ic to her unique mix of polit­i­cal and per­son­al his­to­ry. Unlike her fam­i­ly, Pee­ta (fel­low Trib­ute and dom­i­nant pin­na­cle of the Katniss/​Peeta/​Gale love tri­an­gle) was left behind and is now an estab­lish­ment pup­pet. Kat­niss strug­gles with sleep and dreams of him.

Her pub­li­cised vic­to­ries against the Capi­tol make her an ide­al fig­ure­head for uni­fy­ing rev­o­lu­tion­ary forces hence the rebel res­cue. But this trau­ma­tised teen has unsub­scribed. One of the strengths hard­wired into the char­ac­ters in this world is the dig­ni­ty afford­ed to all emo­tions. Even with Panem at war, the raw­ness, anguish and grief of one per­son is giv­en space to exist.

And yet… ​“We need a light­ning rod. She’s the face of the rev­o­lu­tion. Peo­ple will fol­low her,” mur­murs Plutarch Heav­ens­bee. With this insight, Mock­ing­jay Part 1 revs up a sly ​‘how to’ film-mak­ing dual read­ing. Just as the rev­o­lu­tion needs Kat­niss, the moviego­ing pub­lic needs Jen­nifer Lawrence in full hero­ine mode. Plutarch is played by the late, great Philip Sey­mour Hoff­mann and the film is ded­i­cat­ed to his mem­o­ry. Hoffman’s posthu­mous bow is as a low-key role as weath­ered and inhab­it­ed as he always played them. Con­sid­er­ing the num­ber of dirt­bags in that back-cat­a­logue, it’s a plea­sure to see him deliv­er­ing as a good guy. His Plutarch is a word­ly medi­a­tor between hot­head­ed Kat­niss and cool cat Coin. He is on the side of the rev­o­lu­tion while also being able to nav­i­gate the per­son­al­i­ties entan­gled within.

A stealthy piece of manip­u­la­tion jolts Kat­niss out of her ennui. She is tak­en to see her home dis­trict – now a moun­tain of skele­tons. The cam­era sur­veys them at a pace more akin to art-house than block­buster film­mak­ing all the bet­ter to chan­nel the fire that ris­es up in the young hero­ine who decides that she will indeed be the ​‘mock­ing­jay’.

The fight this time is with cam­eras rather than arrows. Tele­vi­sion direc­tor Cres­si­da (Natal­ie Dormer) fol­lows Kat­niss around with a crew, film­ing at oppor­tune moments in order to cre­ate ​“pro­pos” which will be dis­sem­i­nat­ed through the wires: viral videos to the Capitol’s main­stream media dominance.

“When has Kat­niss gen­uine­ly moved you?” asks Haymitch (Woody Har­rel­son) dur­ing a hilar­i­ous pow­er-point pre­sen­ta­tion involv­ing a snazzy exec­u­tive pen. The meet­ing takes place after Kat­niss’ dis­as­trous attempt at per­form­ing a script­ed propo in an emp­ty stu­dio. This nod to the art and arti­fice and of movie-mak­ing is a delight­ful­ly unex­pect­ed drop of ref­er­enc­ing that rein­vig­o­rates the real­i­ty tele­vi­sion ele­ment that made the orig­i­nal The Hunger Games so disquieting.

This time, how­ev­er, it’s a good fight rather than blood­sports being ele­vat­ed so there is scope for play­ful­ness. The dour, dark rev­o­lu­tion­ary HQ briefly becomes a hub for film­mak­ing brain­storm­ing. The answers Haymitch receives on Kat­niss’ mov­ing moments hark back to encoun­ters in the pre­vi­ous two films in which Kat­niss in a real, field sit­u­a­tion acts for oth­ers rather than her­self. With light-heart­ed aware­ness of the cin­e­mat­ic mag­ic con­jured by dis­plays of sol­i­dar­i­ty, direc­tor Lawrence shows that he knows in the­o­ry how to pro­vide emo­tion­al grace notes.

The film is in the bag when, short­ly there­after, it deliv­ers a moment between Kat­niss and a boy in a hos­pi­tal that some­how is the result of the pre-arranged for­mu­la and tran­scen­dent of it. The fact that we were invit­ed to be in on the mechan­ics adds rather than detracts from the spec­ta­cle. There are a few soar­ing emo­tion­al crescen­dos scat­tered across Mock­ing­jay that come, not with­in the self-con­tained core of lead play­ers, but from armies of coor­di­nat­ed extras. Brave souls who, while being marched on by gun-wield­ing Capi­tol troop­ers, scat­ter at the rev­o­lu­tion­ary mock­ing­jay bird call; the som­bre­ly singing lines of men and women who burst dams in Dis­trict Five.

The glo­ri­ous fram­ing of armies of anony­mous labour­ers is at once a nod to the man­pow­er sac­ri­ficed to war and the droves of undec­o­rat­ed work­ers who make films pos­si­ble. Fran­cis Lawrence’s invi­ta­tions to unpick the com­po­nents of his film are every­where. Kat­niss sings in a small group. That song is sub­se­quent­ly spliced into a propo remind­ing us that can­ny musi­cal cues mul­ti­ply the pow­er of an image

This lay­er­ing of com­men­tary and plot is sat­is­fy­ing­ly cohe­sive but not in the slight­est gim­micky. Events are played straight where nec­es­sary. Fran­cis Lawrence keeps most of the action under­ground in rev­o­lu­tion­ary cen­tral or in the wreck­age of bombed out dis­tricts. A rig­or­ous­ly dis­mal pro­duc­tion design sets the tone. Gone is the gaudy, colour­ful cir­cus of Capi­tol life. Effie Trin­ket is divest­ed of her out­landish cos­tumes yet Eliz­a­beth Banks still pro­vides lev­i­ty via her attempts to sass up rev­o­lu­tion­ary garb. She is not alone in deliv­er­ing a per­fect­ly cal­i­brat­ed per­for­mance. Regard­less of the size of their role, every­one plays their part with the no-frills focus required of a war sit­u­a­tion but with a dash of mov­ing colour that accords with the film’s defin­ing rev­er­ence for personality.

Fran­chise new­com­er Julianne Moore’s Pres­i­dent Coin is aus­tere with just a touch of weari­ness. Liam Hemsworth as Gale is brave but has a moment that crys­tallis­es the tor­ture of roman­tic pain. Pee­ta (Josh Hutch­er­son) is large­ly a soul­less Capi­tol stooge leav­ing it to view­ers to search con­text for his betray­al. Don­ald Suther­land as the vil­lain­ous Pres­i­dent Snow is rep­re­sent­ed more fre­quent­ly by white ros­es than in per­son so when he does appear with a big wolfish grin, there is the deli­cious know­ing­ness of a megas­tar arriv­ing for a third act cameo.

And Jen­nifer Lawrence? Usu­al­ly brood­ing and qui­et, she reserves her tal­ent until – elec­tri­fied by awful sights – feel­ings rise up and echo with some­thing stag­ger­ing­ly pri­mal. We see in Mock­ing­jay Part 1 the depths of extreme emo­tion not as a lily-liv­ered by-prod­uct of suf­fer­ing to be swept under the rug, but as the ral­ly­ing essence of what we are all look­ing for in cin­e­ma and beyond: Fran­cis Lawrence, his actors, pro­duc­tion team and crew have giv­en us a block­buster that uses all its wit and wile to fly on the wings of what makes us human.