The Quill & The Cross

Summary

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a prequel to the original Hunger Games series. It takes us back in time to the 10th Hunger Games, where young Coriolanus Snow is a promising student in the Capitol. Except the Games are different this year: each student will be assigned a kid to mentor in the games–the coveted Plinth prize is the reward. Coriolanus is assigned a girl from District 12, the underdog district, but Lucy Gray Baird has a way of getting the audience to listen. With the Plinth prize on the line, he goes out of his way to help Lucy Gray, but he ends up falling for her even as he believes that she can’t win the Games. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes tells us just how Coriolanus Snow became the evil, twisted president we meet in the The Hunger Games trilogy.

Starring: Tom Blyth, Rachel Zegler, Josh Andres Rivera, Peter Dinklage, Hunter Schafer, Jason Schwartzman, Viola Davis

My Review

Rating: 5/5

My Recommended Age: 14+

Things To Be Aware Of

Violence: 4/5 (The violence in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes can be a bit brutal: there’s no gore, but it is violent. It’s about the same level as the original trilogy. The tributes are mistreated and forced into horrible conditions. One boy has a bat bite and later gets rabies. A girl gets stabbed in the neck with a glass shard. Multiple people are shot. Tributes get punched, stabbed, and shot throughout the games. People die from snake bites. Some tributes take poison that causes nosebleeds before they die. Drones crash into tributes. Multiple people are hung and we see it in the background. A girl’s hand is smashed in an air duct. In the opening scene a man cuts up a corpse for food, but we don’t witness him doing it.)

Sexual Content: 2/5 (Coriolanus and Lucy Gray share a kiss. Teens go swimming in their undergarments. We learn that one girl’s ex cheated on her. One of the female characters is portrayed by a trans actor.)

Language: 2/5 (One use of a** and p**s.)

Other Negative Content: 2/5 (Most of the people in the Capitol are heartless, watching the Games as a sport and mocking the tributes.)

My Take

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes feels a bit more intense than the original trilogy: the arena the tributes fight in is crude and they fight viciously. Not to mention that we witness the horrible nature of the Capitol citizens firsthand. Coriolanus Snow becomes a person you sympathize for, rather than just a cruel dictator. Everyone he is around manipulates him and gets him to believe their lies. And the few people who are actually good people get killed.

The movie was incredibly well made. It sticks very close to the book and all the characters were so well cast. One of the villains, Dr. Volumnia Gaul, is chillingly portrayed. You feel for Coriolanus, but you also condemn him for his choices that made him into the villain. Lucy Gray and Sejanus Plinth (Coriolanus’ friend) are good people, fighting back against the cruelty of the Games in their own way. The story is exceptional, with twists and turns you don’t expect, even though we know who Coriolanus becomes.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is a villain origin story, so it’s not exactly cheerful. We witness horrible people doing horrible things, and it almost seems like they win in the end. But we also get characters like Lucy Gray and Sejanus Plinth, who truly try to do the right thing, even when the odds seem against them. Not to mention the film is incredibly well done, with a captivating storyline and complex characters. It is violent, but it’s not gory. There’s some very catchy songs too. And it adds a whole new perspective to the original trilogy. If you’re a fan of Katniss Everdeen, I would 100% recommend The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes!

May the odds be ever in your favor!