Friday, November 19, 2010
Regal Battery Park Stadium 11

For so many years there was a such a staggering of books and films that something Harry Potter was always going on, something new to look forward to, and soon. The hum of the machine kept the mania largely up, for me. Then the last book came out, and I read it in a day, and I knew then of course that plotwise nothing I would see in any close-hewing film version would take me anywhere vastly new. For these and other reasons, fair or not, this first part of the last chapter of the journey would face more and different and perhaps harsher scrutiny than the sixth or any other film, to say nothing of the expectations.

While I’m glad those expectations were tempered, I still ended up disappointed by this one. It’s been three years since I’ve read the book but many of the set pieces are still fresh, for me and many others. For an obviously visual medium, the film version might well have heightened some of the imagery. But I found much of the film stark and bleak, unnecessarily so, and not just because of the narrative. Darker would have been fine, it was just the grayness that got to me.

As you may know, the film takes place away from Hogwarts. Harry, Ron and Hermione have to locate a series of horcruxes, objects into which Voldemort has injected a part of his soul, so that they may destroy them and he may finally die. They must accomplish this before he locates the Deathly Hallows, objects which will render him immortal. That’s the journey of the last two films. The first ends at a reasonable point in the story, but one at which not many of the horcruxes have been found. Little seems to have been addressed in the first film, which is odd not because of the way the book was written, but because of the fact that they chose to make two films out of it. An even distribution would have been ideal, but I really think that overall Part 7 will have a Kill Bill feel to it, one heavily action-based and one more dialogue-driven. That’s not terrible, but at least with Kill Bill most of the action is in the first part and we are compelled to get through the second if only to see how the story ends.

I have to say it was particularly satisfying to see Godric’s Hollow on-screen, because it is where it all began and one of the more charming locations from the story, given also that Hogwarts, the most charming of all, probably, wasn’t in play. The entire sequence at the Ministry of Magic was involving and probably the most fun part of the whole thing. I was very impressed by the telling of “The Tale of the Three Brothers,” the aetiology of the Deathly Hallows. And in a film so vastly reliant on its acting, conspicuously more so than the previous films, it all held together rather well. The three stars did nicely and acted naturally in a film set very much in “the real world.”

I was surprised at some of the particular choices the filmmakers made. The initial chase from Privet Drive, for example, was the first big action sequence of the book but seemed to pass overly quickly, compared to how bloated some of the later, emptier scenes would be. That’s another point: (And here’s a good ol’ Spoiler Alert, maybe the most unnecessary one ever.) The last scene of the film is at Shell Cottage, after Dobby’s death. I remember in the book that it was a sad, sweet moment, the poignancy of which was doubled by the gorgeous setting. But in the film, while a very moving scene, it was just at a gray beach, a farther-flung and safer but not so different looking location from where they’d been, and only the three kids and Dobby were there. In the book there were many more characters, filling out the scene and addressing a big part of the story – that despite not being at Hogwarts, despite being on their own journey, the kids have a real chance to make it because they have more or less a “fellowship” to support them. To focus on their isolation highlights their vulnerability but changes the story, and sadly so, into something almost as depressing as a certain freaking Cormac McCarthy novel.

I’m very much looking forward to the second part, on its own merit, and possibly to counteract some of the weaknesses in this one. To me, it seemed like the filmmakers thought they had a movie here that everyone is going to see anyway, so they could make the changes they wanted or needed to, cutting it back in certain places, and suffering not for it because it’s not the last one, really, anyway. It’s far from a horrible movie, despite all the fault I’ve found with it, but whether it wasn’t all it could have been, it certainly wasn’t all it should have been.

In brief: If you think you have to see it, you do, so why not do it in a theater?
2 stars/4 (C+)