MY MOVIE SHELF: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

 

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 51 Days to go: 36

Movie #389:  The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

No movie will ever be a perfect adaptation of a book. It isn’t possible. Yet Catching Fire is one of the best ever, and easily the best of The Hunger Games franchise. (Mockingjay Part 2 is, of course, not out yet, but since it’s only half the story and Mockingjay itself was the worst book of the series, it’s safe to crown Catching Fire early.) While certain scenarios are altered or streamlined and others are missing altogether, the movie nevertheless captures the tone and spirit of the second book perfectly. And Jennifer Lawrence, having won her Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook just nine months prior, returns as Katniss with a killer, deeper, more nuanced and fuller performance. For something that could be dubbed as “only” an action franchise based on “only” a YA lit phenomenon, Lawrence doesn’t phone in a bit of it. Just that closing image, in fact, of Katniss lying on an examination table in the heretofore unknown District 13, her face transforming from despair to anger to grim resolve, is practically a professional acting clinic. She’s incredible.

Beyond Lawrence’s performance, though, I also love the character of Katniss herself. She’s angrier on one hand, more frightened on the other, and more overwhelmed than ever by the enormous weight on her shoulders and the impossible decisions that lie before her. But she’s still a teenager too, and she’s still caught between feelings for Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) and feelings for Gale (Liam Hemsworth), and blessedly, the film lets her articulate that. She’s able to have a conversation with Gale in which she says flat-out that there’s no room in her life for feelings of romance because of the threats leveled against her. That’s a stance people aren’t regularly allowed to take in films. Even people who claim to be off the market or not interested in dating are often immediately thrust into a romantic meet-cute or some such nonsense. But real people are sometimes legitimately not capable of fitting romance into their lives, and it’s important that Katniss be afforded that option. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel love — indeed, Katniss loves and cares about many people around her — but at this point the outlet for that love is a need to protect them.

Another young woman allowed to forsake sentimentality in Catching Fire is Johanna Mason (Jena Malone). After years of abuse at the hands of the Capitol, Johanna succinctly sums up her situation with regard to President Snow (Donald Sutherland): “He can’t hurt me. There’s no one left that I love.” (This will come, in Mockingjay, to refer only to being hurt by the screams of these particular jabberjays, but the statement is true as she says it.) She’s known love, but has had it (literally or figuratively, somehow) beaten out of her, and now her response to it — in particular to the hypersexualized Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin) being actually in love with a fragile young woman from his District — is, “Love is weird.” She has no real use for it either. Johanna is a character allowed to be openly angry, to be hateful and sexual and deadly. I love her a lot. And Jena Malone gives her everything to bring that rage and volatility to life. It was seeing Catching Fire that brought me fully around to admitting I’m a Jena Malone fan, and I make no apologies for that. She is fierce and fabulous, just like Johanna.

As expected, production values go way up for Catching Fire from what they were in The Hunger Games (not that they were particularly low before, but the difference is obvious). Katniss, armed with the income of a Victor, now has a much richer — if still serviceable, at least in the Districts — wardrobe, but it’s with Effie (Elizabeth Banks) that the costume budget is really put to good use. Her butterfly ensemble at the reaping for the Quarter Quell is a work of delicate, beautiful art. (And Katniss’s wedding dress is nothing to sneeze at either.) CGI effects have been ramped up as well, as we see Katniss fighting digital holograms in her archery training session and it is every bit as impressive to the audience as it is to the other Victors. The work on the force field is also impressive, and the baboon mutts in Catching Fire are far scarier and better rendered than the dog ones in the first film (though, to be fair, the dog mutts in The Hunger Games film weren’t nearly as scary as their description in the book).

Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) gets to expand himself a bit in this one as well, being cagey and enigmatic while also being the voice of reason with regard to the relationship train Katniss and Peeta are on now. And his fear and desperation at the realization that his name is eligible for the Third Quarter Quell reaping is palpable. Of course, I would’ve liked to see a scene in which Peeta and Katniss watch Haymitch’s Games, the Second Quarter Quell, though thankfully YouTube is capable of scratching that particular itch if you want it to. (I like this one.) Aside from that small wish, though, Catching Fire is really exceptionally well-done. They even recast Buttercup as an acceptable cat. And I think we can all agree how important that was.

Next we see how to make a good movie out of a somewhat middling book as Katniss becomes the Mockingjay.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Stepmom

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 167  Days to go: 118

Movie #271:  Stepmom

My son was born ten days late. They brought me in first thing in the morning to induce labor and twelve hours later he still hadn’t dropped an inch, so I ended up with a c-section. To this day, he still would much rather stay in his comfort zone than venture out of it, and you basically have to prod him along to get him to do anything. My daughter, on the other hand, was a scheduled c-section before my due date. The day before admittance, I had an amniocentesis to ensure her lungs were strong and was having so many contractions afterward they were going to send me up to delivery right then. This threw me into a panic, because all my plans had been made for the next day. Luckily, my doctor wasn’t available and since it wasn’t urgent they sent me home. The next day, as I was being prepped for surgery, I went into labor. She likes to throw wrenches into all my plans, that one. Stepmom came out before I had kids, but it gave me the idea that a child’s delivery was an indication of their personality, and I bought into it because of my own delivery. (I was a month late, because back in the day they allowed that sort of thing, and on the day my mom was to be induced, her water broke. I basically will put everything off as long as I possibly can, and then I’m like, “FINE.”) I actually ask about all my friends’ deliveries, and tell those stories all the time, for that same reason. All because of Stepmom.

I think Stepmom gets kind of a bad rap. It’s a horrible title for the film, which I remember the entire cast acknowledging in some HBO First Look or something back in the day, but there’s not really an immediately evident better one. That doesn’t mean the movie doesn’t have its merits. On the contrary, it has many, and I almost never fail to stop and watch if I happen to catch it on TV. (That’s not always an indication of a great film, but in this case I do like Stepmom quite a bit.)

The film is about the rivalry between Jackie (Susan Sarandon) and Isabel (Julia Roberts) — Isabelle being the new woman in Jackie’s ex-husband’s (Luke, played by Ed Harris) life. Jackie is basically SuperMom to her and Luke’s two kids, Anna (Jena Malone) and Ben (Liam Aiken), whereas Isabel is still trying to figure them out (and meeting a lot of resistance along the way). It may be emotionally manipulative in places, but what I really love is how, in truth, neither woman has all the answers, but neither one of them is wrong, either. They lash out at each other, which is often mean and unwarranted, but you can see that it originates from pain and fear and frustration. And it turns out to be just heartbreaking. When Ben says to Jackie, of Isabel, “If you want me to hate her, I will,” her face plummets with the realization of what she’s doing to her kids by undermining Isabel and how she’s teaching them to hold negativity in their hearts, and it kills her more than having them like Isabel ever would.

Essentially, that’s what it’s all about. Jackie is still bitter that her husband left her, that her marriage failed, and that he’s found some young, beautiful, successful someone new while she remains the responsible homemaker, and she’s terrified of losing her kids to this interloper as well. Meanwhile, Isabel is flustered by the abrupt changes in her life that sharing it with two kids eventually brings, but more than that she feels perpetually inadequate compared with Jackie. So even though she really grows to love the children and to want to spend time with them, she believes she always suffers by comparison to their mom. And Jena Malone (who is really great here, by the way, long before she knocked all our socks off in Catching Fire), plays Anna with such a true and sincere combination of insecurity and spitefulness and loyalty. She loves her mom, of course, and she feels a sense of solidarity and obligation to her to stand on her side and to disparage everything to do with Isabel on principle. Her coming around on that point is so gradual and so tentative and so authentic, it really drives home how difficult these changes are for everyone.

And the thing is, I’ve been on both the giving and receiving end of a lot of these feelings and issues, so I can say with certainty how true to life the underlying emotions of the film are. Sure, these people are all inordinately genteel compared with how two sides of a broken family more likely are. (Jackie are Luke, for example, despite having some contentious arguments at times, are still close friends, which is not impossible but is insanely hard.) But I think they’re like that in order to best convey how possible it can be to act in the best interests of your kids (difficult, but possible), and how that should be the goal. I’ve actually kept that in mind all through my divorce and my second marriage. It’s not something I’ve always achieved, but it has always been what I’ve striven for.

The two resolve their differences by the film’s end, as movie rivals often do, though it’s maybe made easier by the state of Jackie’s health, which is kind of cheating. Still, it’s a really nice moment. And the conversation they have about someday in the future, at Anna’s eventual wedding, is one that consistently brings me to tears and one that I’ve thought about often with regard to my own dear stepdaughter and my hope that one day she’ll come to realize, as Jackie says, that “they don’t have to choose. They can have us both.”

It can be painful, but the alternative is worse.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Saved!

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 206  Days to go: 144

Movie #232:  Saved!

This is a delicate subject, because while I’m not a Christian, I certainly don’t make a habit of lambasting people’s religion in a public forum. There are many things about religion — all religions — that I disagree with, but honestly I’m more of an intellectual debate kind of person than a blind insult kind of person. I do love the movie Saved!, though.

Saved! is definitely a film that aims to skewer Christianity, but not broadly. Saved!‘s target, specifically, is extremist Christianity, fundamentalist — dare I say intolerant — Christianity. And this is a problem everywhere, in every religion, around the world. Everywhere there are Christians — many making up huge chunks of my own beloved family and friends — who are reasonable, rational, loving, generous people who are never on the news spreading hate speech in the name of Jesus or whatever. The same goes for Hindus and Muslims and Jews and Buddhists and every other faith system under the sun. They are kind, accepting people, just trying to live their best lives, and I respect that. But there are other people who maybe do not present the most positive image of their faith, and in Saved!, that person is Hilary Faye (Mandy Moore).

Hilary Faye is nothing more than a Mean Girl in Christian clothing. She’s rude, judgmental, superficial, cares only for herself, and she’s incredibly clique-oriented. She’s even awful to her disabled brother Roland (Macaulay Culkin). Only the cool kids can hang with Hilary Faye, or, if you don’t hang with her, you must be a loser. It’s a very angry, very lonely way to be. Jena Malone plays Mary, Hilary’s best friend, who tries really hard to be a good Christian, though she finds it harder and harder as her senior year goes on. What I love is that as Mary has a crisis of faith and, according to all around her, would be considered a sinner (as she starts to hang out with the other “sinners” at her Christian high school), Mary exhibits more positive traits of Christianity than almost anyone else, save Patrick (Patrick Fugit), the pastor’s son who has a crush on Mary. She’s open and accepting of people who her classmates shun (particularly the wild heathen Cassandra, played by Eva Amurri), she’s not at all hateful of her ex-boyfriend Dean (Chad Faust) who’s been sent away to be cured of his homosexuality, and she’s loving and forgiving of those around her, wishing nobody harm. Not even Hilary Faye.

That’s the key for me, I think. I think if you accept that you’re not perfect — that nobody’s perfect — then you’re much more open to accepting the people around you, faults and all. If you hold yourself to an impossible ideal, on the other hand, you wind up nothing but frustrated with yourself and with everyone else. In the end, Mary finds herself reconciled with her faith — not as Hilary Faye thinks it should be, but with accepting the teachings of Jesus as she knows them and with really striving to live her life as he would. And that’s not a joke at all. It may not be my choice, but it’s certainly one I appreciate.

“So everything that doesn’t fit into some stupid idea of what you think God wants you just try to hide or fix or get rid of? It’s just all too much to live up to. No one fits in one hundred percent of the time. Not even you.”

The movie’s also really sweet and funny, and really wry and funny. When Mary prays for cancer, it’s hilarious on the one hand and cringe-inducing on the other. When her mom (Mary-Louise Parker) realizes she won’t send Mary away because she loves her daughter more than anything (even more than she loves Pastor Skip, played by Martin Donovan), it’s incredibly heartwarming. And it hits just about every other point in between, too. After all, “there’s only one reason Christian girls come down to the Planned Parenthood.” “She’s planting a pipe bomb?” “Okay, two reasons.”

“Why would God make us all different if he wanted us to be the same?”

MY MOVIE SHELF: Pride & Prejudice

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 169  Days to go: 165

Movie #214:  Pride & Prejudice

A lot of people have a great deal of loyalty and devotion for the BBC-Colin Firth-Jennifer Ehle miniseries version of Jane Austen’s most famous novel, and I can’t deny it’s excellent. However, I honestly like this theatrical version quite a lot. Keira Knightly is a lovely and charming Elizabeth Bennet. She shines with both intelligence and beauty, she is possessed with a confidence and self-assurance that is attractive and strong, and she has a powerful comfort with herself and loyalty to her friends and family. These are all qualities that are crucial to Elizabeth’s personality so her titular pride (and prejudice) comes across as admirable and understandable (in the early going) instead of off-putting or undeserved.

The other half of that equation is of course Matthew Macfadyen as Mr. Darcy. Obviously he is no Colin Firth, but if I’m being perfectly honest I can run hot and cold on Mr. Firth, and I find Macfadyen perfectly encompasses that combination of socially awkward and introverted along with being taxed with a certain set of societal obligations and expectations. He comes from a vastly different upbringing than Elizabeth does and has no doubt been inundated with the responsibilities of his class and station — a fact made obvious when you see the manner of his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourg (Judi Dench). However, you can also see his obvious flustered appearance when he’s near Elizabeth, even as early as their first meeting. Macfadyen does a wonderful job subtly conveying that conflict within him, clearly being drawn to this woman yet arguing with himself over her lower station. It might seem a silly thing to get hung up on now, but England has long been a society with clear class lines, particularly so in the time period of the story.

The most important thing about Knightly and Macfadyen, however, and what makes their pairing work so well, is their crackling chemistry. At various times in the film, they manage to convey thick tension, uncomfortable encounters, vituperative conflict, enveloping warmth and sensuous passion. They bring a vitality to the roles that, while excelling separately, truly sparkles when they come together.

Pride & Prejudice doesn’t rest solely on the performances of their two leads, though. The supporting casting and performances are strong and convincing across the board, whether it’s Brenda Blethyn as flighty and calculating Mrs. Bennet, Donald Sutherland as composed and put-upon Mr. Bennet, Simon Woods as the shy and affable Mr. Bingley (or Kelly Reilly as his snide and manipulative sister Caroline), Tom Hollander as the insufferable Mr. Collins, or any one of Elizabeth’s sisters: Rosamund Pike captivates as reserved beauty Jane, Jena Malone frustrates as the superficial and irresponsible Lydia, Carey Mulligan (in her feature film debut) captures Kitty’s immaturity and longing with verve, and Talulah Riley is hilarious as stone-faced and super serious Mary. Even Rupert Friend in the small but crucial role of Mr. Wickham manages a sexy and captivating enigmatic nature that makes him such a great and compelling mystery. The story itself is an intricate and layered tale, making it so important that the entire ensemble is a successful and cohesive collaboration, and this film  — this outstanding cast — really pull that off.

As for the story as a whole, the script is built and structured in a way that preserves the original plot of the novel well. The movie feels complete but not overlong, and also manages not to hurry or cut short any critical elements. And the film itself is beautifully shot, with soft glowing camera work, misty and lush landscapes, and a lovely piano score accompaniment that is infused into the very background in a way that enhances and never detracts or distracts. It’s a gorgeous rendition, all around.

I never read Jane Austen in my younger years, but I’ve been catching up with her of late, and I understand why Pride & Prejudice is so beloved. It’s a classic tale of misunderstandings getting in the way of love — long before it was such a staple of modern romances — and it’s an encouraging example of love being able to conquer those odds, those misunderstandings, those familial expectations and obstacles, and even our own tendencies to sabotage ourselves. It’s a story of hope and optimism, of loyalty and right winning out. In essence, it has all the elements that make romances so enduring and beloved across time, and the film is a solid representation of that. If you’ve only ever seen the BBC version, sidestepping this one because it could never live up to your favorite (or whatever the reason — lord knows there are a wide range of Austen adaptations, of varying quality), give this film another shot. You might be pleasantly surprised. In fact, I quite prefer it.