The Hunger Games: Mockingjay- Part 2
One of the most surprising things about “The Hunger Games” movie franchise is how it has moved dramatically away from being something that is intended to be entertaining, and became a necessary dive into the world of metaphor and allegory about the way humanity works. Yes, many people were quick to point at the central premise and go, “That’s just ‘Battle Royale’ for the YA crowd,” but in the hands of the writers this series has had, and under the direction of Francis Lawrence since “Catching Fire,” the movies from Suzanne Collins’s trilogy of books have become as much about the way reality has been subverted by people in the name of entertainment, and turned into spectacle for the masses, regardless of how much pain is inflicted on the people it exploits. This is a bold and surprising theme for a blockbuster movie franchise, but credit must be given to Lionsgate for not playing it safe in bringing this series to life.
Probably the most remarkable thing I found in “Mockingjay- Part 2” is how Lawrence and his writers, Peter Craig and Danny Strong, have kept the focus on Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), yet also managed to give the two most important men in her life, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) and Gale (Liam Hemsworth), fascinating story arcs of their own, which fly in almost undetectable unless you’re paying attention. War has been a vital subject in the two-part finale of this franchise, and in “Part 2,” we see up close how it changes people. When we last saw him in “Part 1,” Peeta had been rescued from the Capitol by the rebel forces, but he had been tortured, and fed a serum that twisted his mind to see Katniss, whom he loves, as an enemy and the real instigator of the violence that has erupted throughout Panem since the Quarterquell. The first implication was immediately to see him as a Manchurian Candidate type sleeper agent for the ruthless President Snow (Donald Sutherland), but in “Part 2,” the arc the character follows is more in keeping with a person suffering from PTSD, not always capable of controlling their emotions or actions, their mind not their own, and acutely aware of the threat they pose to those around them. Hutcherson deepens Peeta’s personality beautifully with this kink in his personality, making him seem more than just the love-struck male hero supporting the heroine, but a survivor of trauma in his own right next to Katniss. They both have to adapt to this new world, outwardly and emotionally, they live in now, and it makes their bond even more important. Meanwhile, Gale (who has been fighting with the rebels since before the Quarterquell) has a very different arc thanks to the war. We think back to how, before the beginning of the Hunger Games that Katniss volunteered for in place of her sister, Prim (Willow Shields), Gale and Katniss were talking after hunting, and Gale said, “What if we just stopped watching?” The implication was that if the masses rejected the spectacle of death that the Capitol had created, the Capitol would lose much of it’s leverage over the citizens it suppressed, and they might be forced to appease the people differently. Early on in this film, we understand that the optimistic Gale who said that is gone when he shows how war has altered his thinking; now, he only sees the endgame, regardless of how they get there. No price is too big, a harsh worldview that we’ll see played out in the film’s devastating climax. Hemsworth finally is allowed to put some meat on Gale’s bones, and it’s an important part of the way things play out not only in the larger arc of the story, but in where both he and Katniss are at the end of the film.
The central crux of the film stems not only from the way the war has affected Katniss, Peeta and Gale, but also in what will be left behind after it finishes. The rebellion, led from District 13 by President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore, so good as always), has pushed the Capitol’s forces into only having the Capitol itself, and District 2, to defend. This war will be over soon, and Snow understands that. But one of the exceptional things about Sutherland’s performance of the character, save for some over-the-top mustache twirling during “Mockingjay- Part 1,” is how we have been allowed to see the thought process behind his every move, his every gesture towards Katniss. In the books, the story was seen solely from Katniss’s point-of-view, so it’s quite extraordinary how the writers and directors of the series have managed to create a traditional cinematic narrative that allowed for our seeing events not having to do with Katniss with such clarity. This is a chess match between two equally powerful forces. The difference between them for the first 2 1/2 movies was that Snow was well aware of his power, while Katniss did not understand hers. By the time she is on the front lines in “Part 2,” however, Katniss is fully aware of what seeing her means to the rebel fighters, and she is going to exploit that to her advantage as she sets out to assassinate Snow herself. The dramatic changes Snow’s torture of Peeta has brought to him, though, hit Katniss where she lives, and the emotional turmoil Katniss endures in the film is where having Jennifer Lawrence in the role is of utmost importance. By now, she has lived with this character for four years, and that familiarity allows Lawrence to push Katniss into some risky territory and be more vulnerable than another actress would be allowed. The key aspect about Katniss since the first film has always been that she is not a superhero. She is not a “chosen one” or a Wonder Woman or a Buffy Summers, but rather, a young woman who did something selfless for someone else (her sister Prim) and got swept up into being a symbol for something larger than she is. The important thing has been, throughout these movies, that Katniss has never forgotten it, and neither have the writers. Each emotional beat has come from the character, and not some abstract need to turn her into a Harry Potter-like messianic character; if she were to die, she would be dead, unable to come back thanks to a convenient deus ex machina. That tension makes the climax of this film more interesting, when Katniss realizes the lengths people will go to for power, and will go to for her influence on the masses. The characters who know her best- Haymitch (Woody Harrelson), Snow, Peeta, Plutarch (Philip Seymour Hoffman), even Effie (Elizabeth Banks)- understand why she does what she will do, and even instinctively know she will do it before the decision is made. That we understand this without being told with big gestures shows how much Francis Lawrence and his writers trust their audience to figure things out for themselves. It’s one of the things that has turned “The Hunger Games” series into something more than just an adventure franchise about a kick-ass woman and the loves of her life, and resulted in one of the most complete cinematic stories of the modern age. It’s more than just an entertainment for the masses, but a reflection of the time in which it has been made. Will we take the same lessons Katniss does after all she has witnessed, or just wait and watch history repeat itself?
