The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes: How to Expand a Finished Franchise

This month, I had the absolute pleasure of watching a prequel to a film series adapted from my favourite books of all time. As indicated by the title, this movie is of course The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, an extension of the Hunger Games universe. And while this is the first Hunger Games film that I’ve seen without first reading the book, it did absolutely convince me to do so.

TBOSAS takes place over 60 years before the events of the original trilogy, and instead of focusing on the story of somebody from the districts, it actually looks at an 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow (Tom Blyth), the man who would eventually become the tyrannical President Snow of the main series.

Within the film, the viewer gets to see a lot of things that Snow did as a young man. The first half of the movie is focused on his mentorship of Lucy Gray Baird (Rachel Zegler), a girl from district 12 who was forced to compete in the 10th Hunger Games. The main purpose of this mentorship is to win the ‘Plinth Prize’, a prestigious scholarship, but along the way, Snow begins to actually care for Lucy Gray – much to the dismay of fellow Capitol citizens who do not view district citizens as real people.

I won’t go too much farther into the plot so as to not spoil anything, but TBOSAS is probably my favourite character-study film of the year. It just does such an amazing job at taking a legendary character and explaining his backstory without feeling dishonest to the source material. Within the film, you can see how Snow goes from a regular Capitol citizen to a near-comical supervillain.

Pairing this with phenomenal performances from the rest of the cast, you have an instantly amazing movie. And I’d feel wrong leaving out this cast’s amazing performances, so I’ll go over the standouts:

Dr. Gaul (Viola Davis) is truly one of the coolest villains in cinema; from the costume design to Davis’ excellent line delivery, everybody I’ve talked to agrees about this. Lucky Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman) is one of the most fun characters I’ve ever seen, and this was evidenced by me hearing my brother constantly chuckle at his lines in the theatre. Sejanus (Josh Rivera) is just an overall amazing performance, overflowing with emotion and increasingly relevant political commentary. And finally, Dimitri Abold as Reaper, while not a major character by any means, provided two of the most emotionally rich scenes I’ve seen in any movie this year.

Finally, the romance between Snow and Lucy Gray lives up to all of the rich romance that the Hunger Games series has always had. It’s believable, but it also works in the sense that you understand what happens to it over the course of the film.

TBOSAS was an amazing film, and a very welcome addition to the Hunger Games franchise. Instead of changing what we thought we knew about the series (cough cough Star Wars), it simply expanded to it, giving us thirsty fans more content to craze over.

I haven’t even read the book, but I can confidently say that the film is a must-watch, and the book is a must-read. 9/10