Film talk: Emotions run high in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes

The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes tells the story of the origins of the future President Coriolanus Snow.

Audiences will already be familiar with Snow as the tyrannical leader of Panem, an evil man who presided over the annual Hunger Games which saw the slaughter of dozens of District children every year in the name of warning and intimidation.

In the original films, released between 2012 and 2015, Snow was played by Donald Sutherland. Now, in the fifth film in The Hunger Games franchise, Tom Blyth, whose previous film credits include 2018’s Scott and Sid and 2021’s Benediction, is taking on the role.

This film, set 64 years before the events of the first Hunger Games movie, shows what it’s was like for Snow as a teenager in the years following the dark days of war we hear so much about in the later stories.

We get to know Snow – or Coryo, as he’s affectionately known – as an 18-year-old tasked with mentoring Lucy Gray Baird, the Tribute from the impoverished District 12, in the upcoming 10th annual Hunger Games.

Lucy Gray, played by Golden Globe-winning West Side Story star Rachel Zegler, has a warm presence and beautiful singing voice, and Snow realises she has the capacity to win the hearts of Panem. And Snow really needs her to appeal to the crowds.

Let's take a look at some of this week's new releases:

THE HUNGER GAMES: THE BALLAD OF SONGBIRDS & SNAKES (UK 12A/ROI 12A, 156 mins)

Released: November 17 (UK & Ireland)

The origins of evil are rooted in love in a polished dystopian fantasy set 64 years before Katniss Everdeen volunteered as tribute and became a reluctant totem of rebellion.

Adapted from Suzanne Collins’ 2020 novel by screenwriters Michael Lesslie and Michael Arndt, The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes careens towards an emotional tipping point where teenage Coriolanus Snow recalibrates his moral compass so the odds are forever in his favour.

We feel connected to the president-to-be through Tom Blyth’s compelling performance.

He permits us to glimpse dark, poisonous ambition percolating beneath the character’s facade and we root for Snow, naively wishing he might elude a Machiavellian destiny etched in blood in the timeline.

Throughout the series, Snow frequently wears a white rose in his lapel.

The origins of this obsession with a flower that typically symbolises innocence and purity are explained, deepening our understanding of a man predisposed to tenderness or iron-fisted tyranny.

The calm before the storm of the 10th Hunger Games marks a critical juncture in the regeneration of post-war Panem.

Interest is waning in a barbaric spectacle created by Snow’s late father Crassus and Casca Highbottom (Peter Dinklage).

Powerbrokers in the Capitol place their trust in head gamesmaker Dr Volumnia Gaul (Davis) to repackage bloodshed as thrilling mainstream entertainment.

Weatherman Lucretius Flickerman (Jason Schwartzman), who boasts amateur magician on his resume, is hired as host and graduating students of the Capitol’s elite Academy are assigned to mentor the Tributes.

Eighteen-year-old Coriolanus (Blyth) intends to drag his Grandma’am (Fionnula Flanagan) as well as his cousin Tigris (Hunter Schafer) out of the slavering jaws of poverty by shepherding Lucy Gray Baird (Zegler) from District 12 through the Games.

She captivates the Capitol but survival in Panem demands conformity and Snow makes agonising choices that set him on the path to damnation.

The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes is the longest chapter of the franchise, exceeding The Hunger Games: Catching Fire by more than 15 minutes.

Scenes of brutality sometimes shy away from explicitly depicting violence on screen to secure a 12A certificate but the prequel is dark and disturbing nonetheless.

Just as this edition of the Games is catching fire, it’s over.

SALTBURN (UK 15/ROI 16, 131 mins)

Released: November 17 (UK & Ireland)

Oscar-winning writer-director Emerald Fennell trades the toxic masculinity and gender warfare of her incendiary debut feature, Promising Young Woman starring Carey Mulligan, for a scabrous study of murderous obsession which takes narrative cues from Evelyn Waugh and Patricia Highsmith. Mulligan causes another commotion for Fennell, this time as an eccentric houseguest who has outstayed her welcome, but the picture is commanded by Barry Keoghan as a cuckoo in the nest, who devours unsuspecting prey with gusto (“You ate him right up and licked the plate!”).

Working class Liverpudlian student Oliver Quick (Keoghan) is a socially awkward square peg in the polished round hole of Oxford University, where wealth and privilege are flaunted and outsiders like Oliver are rudely dismissed without a chance to prove their worth.

“He’s a scholarship boy who buys his clothes from Oxfam,” sneers one well-to-do classmate.

A random act of kindness lavished on dashing aristocrat Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) grants Oliver access to rarefied circles, much to the chagrin of Felix’s spiteful cousin Farleigh Start (Archie Madekwe).

Farleigh repeatedly goes cap in hand to Felix’s father Sir James Catton (Richard E Grant) and resents his cousin’s burgeoning friendship with a “Norman No Mates” like Oliver.

Tensions come to a head when Oliver is invited to spend the summer at the Catton family’s sprawling country estate in the company of Felix’s haughty mother Elspeth (Rosamund Pike), emotionally brittle sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and a family friend known as “poor dear Pamela” (Mulligan).

Pamela ignores polite hints to leave while Oliver ingratiates himself with his hosts and witnesses their withering assessment of the whirling social set including one unexpected death in the family.

THANKSGIVING (UK 18/ROI 18, 106 mins)

Released: November 17 (UK & Ireland)

A shadowy figure terrorises residents of Plymouth, Massachusetts – the birthplace of the Thanksgiving celebration – in a bloodthirsty horror masterminded by director Eli Roth and written by Jeff Rendell.

Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days in America when some shoppers have resorted to physical violence to snag a bargain, provides the film with its tragic backstory.

Residents of Plymouth no longer look forward to Thanksgiving because it is a painful reminder of a deadly stampede during the holiday sale.

A mysterious killer targets survivors of the riot one by one using utensils often found on a Thanksgiving table.

As the body count rises, Sheriff Newlon (Patrick Dempsey) seeks to reassure locals that he has everything under control.

MAY DECEMBER (UK 15/ROI 16, 117 mins)

Released: November 17 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas) and streaming exclusively on Sky Cinema from December 8

More than 25 years after director Todd Haynes first worked with Julianne Moore on the psychological drama Safe, the two creatives reunite for a barbed character study loosely inspired by the true story of schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau.

Moore plays Georgia housewife Gracie Atherton-Yoo, who has spent more than 20 years trying to escape the furore of her sexual relationship with a minor, who is now her husband, 36-year-old Joe (Charles Melton).

The couple are poised to send their youngest children, Charlie (Gabriel Chung) and Mary (Elizabeth Yu), to college.

Before the family nest empties, Gracie and Joe host an extended stay by television actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), who will be portraying Gracie in a forthcoming film.

Elizabeth intends to study Gracie and her loved ones to better understand her screen character and the truth about the underage relationship.

DRIVING MADELEINE (UK 15/ROI 15A TBC, 90 mins)

Released: November 17 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas)

Disillusioned but kind-hearted taxi driver Charles (Dany Boon) agrees to take 92-year-old Madeleine Keller (Line Renaud) across Paris to the retirement facility that will be her twilight home.

He is moved by her story and agrees to take Madeleine to some of the places in the French capital that have impacted her life. A tender friendship is forged on a touching odyssey through city streets, which compels the elderly passenger to recall harrowing instances of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

Charles provides emotional support from behind the wheel as the odd couple are forever changed by their time together.