The movie: heroine nearly shoots a deer but misses, heroine yells when small sister is chosen to join other children in a fight to the death for the amusement of the rich audience. Heroine grimaces, frowns and frets a lot, while dressed in spectacular clothes. The games begin: almost all children die off camera except for a few boys who fight hand to hand combat, their movements blurred and choppy concealing detail until the camera looks away and then pans to someone lying face down in the grass as the other limps away. A few corpses are shown, a cannon announces each death, hero declares love for heroine, appears to betray her, saves her, then is saved by her twice. Game over. The end.
The book: heroine shoots deer, rabbits, squirrel, wild dogs to feed the sister and mother she loves and help the people of the village, with the help of a boy she loves. On-screen hunting might shock people more than the graphic violence of children being killed, but except for shooting a bird in flight which she fails to collect, no animals were harmed in the making of this film, even for pretend. The graphic violence described in detail in the book was softened or moved out of sight in the film. I was glad for that.
The movie does not capture emotions, complexities, conflicts and feelings and without that, the movie is just another action flick in which the hero and heroine have narrow escapes from sudden death as minor characters get devoured or blown to pieces.
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