The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Harry Potter. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Percy Jackson & the Olympians. Twilight. The Mortal Instruments. Enders Game. The Fault in Our Stars.

Hollywood loves young adult novel film adaptations and at the moment there seems to be an enormous market for them. When everyone's favourite teenage wizard hung up his invisibility cloak and retired his Firebolt in 2011 the search for the Next Big Thing began. Tidal waves of ridiculous vampire/werewolf rubbish saturated cinema screens thanks to Twilight, and teenagers proved more than ever they are hugely influential at the box office. The Hunger Games came at the right time in 2012 as Hollywood continued to search for something that simultaneously fitted the mould and smashed it to pieces. Suzanne Collins' trilogy immediately ticked all the boxes for a successful adaptation, but its questioning of morality, politics and the core principle of children fighting to the death on television took it to another level. It had the potential to appeal to younger audiences with intelligent, thought-provoking film making instead of patronising them with yet more saccharine love triangles and pandering to the teenage stereotype.

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As the hype surrounding The Hunger Games began to build in 2012 I made a point of reading the books before heading off to the cinema. Initially I read them purely to satisfy my curiosity, behaving like a total sheep and just jumping on the nearest bandwagon. Luckily - and to my surprise - I loved them and devoured the adventures of Katniss Everdeen in a 4-day Hunger Games binge. If you haven't read them already, then I'd recommend them wholeheartedly. For me, they're no Harry Potter but they're brilliant nonetheless!

I really enjoyed the first film and now, after months of anticipation, Katniss Everdeen is back on the silver screen for the second instalment of the hugely successful trilogy: Catching Fire.

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Following their rule-breaking achievement in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, where children from each of the 12 districts of the futuristic Panem are forced to compete in a televised fight to the death, Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) attempt to adjust to life back in District 12 where they are now victors, celebrities and role models, trapped in a crowd-pleasing romance that had ensured their survival. However, during their Victory Tour of all 12 Districts in Panem, an unexpected impact of their little ruse in the arena was made apparent; the spark of the beginning of a revolution against the Capitol in the districts, ignited and inspired by the belief that Katniss and Peeta’s double suicide attempt at the end of the last Hunger Games was a sign of rebellion and defiance against the Capitol. At the orders of the deadly President Snow (Donald Sutherland), the new Games Maker Caesar Flickerman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) suggests a simple solution to silence the discontent of the people: commissioning a special Hunger Games featuring previous victors, thus bringing Katniss straight back into the arena in an attempt to damage her newfound reputation as the symbol of rebellion, and ultimately end her life.

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Catching Fire is an excellent sequel to the Hunger Games, and new director Francis Lawrence has confidently taken over the reigns and continued to steer the franchise in the right direction. With a whole host of new actors, including the brilliant Jena Malone and Sam Claflin (and a small cameo from Magda from Sex and the City), this film feels a lot older and more mature than the last one. It’s no longer a cast of children, and with adults now killing one another as well, this is even more cut-throat than before. Watching children kill each other was abhorrent and harrowing enough, but the Games this time around seems almost worse; these are adults who were once the children who had managed to survive the Games in the past (at great emotional and mental cost—look at Haymitch’s drunkenness and Katniss’s recurring nightmares) and are now forced back into the arena again to relive the most horrifying moments of their lives, psychologically scarred and twice as dangerous. As a result, the film is a raw, tense and an absolutely thrilling ride from start to finish.

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At first glance, Catching Fire seems to adhere to a tried and tested love triangle between Katniss, Peeta and Gale: the unavoidable plot point in virtually every young adult film. In the second instalment of the franchise, Katniss and Peeta attempt to adjust to life after the Games as their “relationship” is paraded on national television and poured over by the residents of the Capitol during the Victory Tours. Back in District 12, Gale (Liam Hemsworth) watches forlornly from a distance as his best friend and the love of his life turns into an unrecognisable stranger.

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It does seem to tick all the boxes on the surface. However, the beauty of The Hunger Games lies in the fact that Katniss is wholeheartedly uninterested in being thrust into the middle of a battle for her affections. The marketing campaign doesn’t hinge on fans picking to be on either Team Peeta or Team Gale. This film is unquestionably Team Katniss, and it’s truly refreshing to see a script that acknowledges the teen romance angle and dismisses it in favour of celebrating the strong female protagonist.

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This is the story of Katniss’ desperate fight for survival, the love for her sister and her attempt to find a place in a society on the verge of a revolution that she had unwittingly started. This isn’t Twilight; the story isn’t dictated by which strong, alpha male Katniss eventually settles on. It is by questioning the typical stereotypes and gender roles and refusing to adhere to them by focusing on more important and interesting issues that really makes this film stand out.

It’s impossible to talk about The Hunger Games and not mention Jennifer Lawrence. Since the first film, Lawrence has enjoyed a meteoric rise in fame, achieving international success (and an Oscar) thanks to the amazing Silver Linings Playbook and firmly cementing a place in everyone’s hearts as a result of her honesty, sense of humour and lack of filter in interviews.

 

In a world saturated with washed-up Disney stars, seeing Lawrence go from strength to strength with varied and carefully selected projects is fantastic. Originally dubbed too large to play Katniss, Lawrence has proved all her critics wrong by championing a positive and healthy body image for young girls.

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She’s one of the only actresses her age who can successfully pull off such an emotional, intelligent and complex character with moments of unabashed comedy and vulnerability as well. In some respects, therefore, Lawrence has become larger than The Hunger Games in the same way that Katniss has. The main draw is no longer the devastating games forcing children to kill each other for entertainment but the smart young woman at the centre of it all.

Catching Fire is a wonderful, thought-provoking film that is exciting and emotionally charged from the onset. If anything, it shows that it is possible to follow a book closely and still produce an excellent film: a concept so often lost in Hollywood. It’s worth seeing not only because of the talented Jennifer Lawrence, but because despite being a mainstream box office hit, it is anything but average, with questions of politics, morality, and reality television all informing and providing surprising depth to an already empowering and thrilling film.

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