The Hunger Games franchise continued with “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes,” coming out as a movie. The original book by Suzanne Collins, released on May 19, 2020, gained popularity and sold over 3.5 million copies. The movie came to theaters in November 2023, with actors Rachel Zeagler and Tom Blyth playing the main characters, Lucy Gray Baird and Coriolanus Snow. So far, the movie’s rating consists of 64% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 6.9/10 on IMDb and 54% on Metacritic.
The movie follows young Coriolanus Snow as he mentors for the 10th Hunger Games. This takes place before the rest of the Hunger Games movies. His tribute, Lucy Gray Baird, became a crowd favorite after her first musical performance. Together they fight for love, life and freedom, despite their many differences. Lucy Gray discovers that Snow might not be the right person for her, due to his allegiance with the Capitol, so she abandons him, leaving Snow to return to the Capitol.
The movie has a screen time of 2 hours and 38 minutes. The casting was perfect, and they all performed very well. Zeagler did a great job with her musical performance, and Blyth fit the role of Snow like a glove. As far as accuracy to the book, the movie does a great job condensing 517 pages. They managed to depict the important parts of the book without making the movie drag.
I noticed people who disliked the movie either had not read the book, or they wanted everything to be the same as the book. Some people have also compared “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” to the original franchise, despite the books having different plots. As someone who read the book, I loved the movie. It remains one of the most accurate book-to-movie transitions in my mind. This movie has become one of my favorites.