Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 is just that — the second part of a movie that we all saw last November. It isn't intended to stand on its own, and it couldn't. It won't when devotees buy the 2-part DVDs in time for Christmas. The movie starts off, practically in the middle of a conversation, and goes full speed ahead, towards Harry's destiny and Voldemort's, with bodies piling to the right and left. Many are heralding this film as the best of the series, but I can't do that, until I see it, back-to-back with its other half. As far as a coda to characters that I have enjoyed, even loved at times, it was very satisfying.
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| Harry, Hermione, & Ron |
Part 2 can be unrelenting (and it is no more so than the book it's based upon, the weakest of Rowling's series). But it is also rewarding, with many, many nods to the previous films. J.K. Rowling created a wonderful world, with such fun details and endearing characters that many have grown to love. Her only weakness has been an inability to to not try to pack it all in — endless explanations for how and why things in the wizarding world are the way they are.
What has always been great about the films, even the weaker entries, are how screenwriter Steve Kloves has been able to condense Rowling's labyrinthian plotting and concentrated on the characters. Directors like David Yates have been able to visually tell the audience something that Rowling would have felt forced to use many, many words to do and a wimpy editor would have been afraid to cut. For example, the epilogue in
The Deathly Hallows book was excruciating, as Rowling just couldn't let go of control of her characters and felt forced to explain, down to jobs held and ridiculously obvious middle names chosen for their progeny, precisely what happened to Harry, Ron & Hermione in the future. God forbid she let her young fans come up with futures for Harry and his friends from their own imaginations. But that horrible postscript, when it is depicted in the movie, with hardly any dialogue except a few words from Harry to his son is something else entirely. It allows the audience to enjoy seeing Platform 9 3/4 once again and to see that Harry has truly gotten past his pain and has become a caring, loving, parent. It doesn't even mention what he's doing for a living. Bravo, Yates & Co.
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| Neville! |
There are so many other little moments such as these in the movie, little goodbyes and thank yous, that provide brief respites from the Battle of Hogwarts, which takes up most of the the second half of the film. Some come directly from Rowling's text, some are nice little visual additions — Harry runs across Cornish pixies in the Room of Requirement, Snape has Harry use the Pensieve one last time. There are lots of faces we are happy to see again — John Hurt as Ollivander, Emma Thompson as Professor Trelawney, Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid. We also get to see favorite characters who have passed on, like Gary Oldman as Sirius Black.
The Deathly Hallows is a movie for fans of the Potter-verse. They will be happy, as things have been done right. I suppose that a fan of action movies might enjoy the battle scenes, but they wouldn't get most of the little moments that make it such a treat for the initiated — Neville (Matthew Lewis) and the sorting hat, the search for horcruxes, the breaking into and escape from Gringott's. It was great to see the three kids together again, if bittersweet, for the last time — Emma Watson as Hermione, Rupert Grint as Ron, and Daniel Radcliffe as Harry. The trio are together for most of the film, until Harry's stand-off with Ralph Fienne's Voldemort, but the movie belongs to Radcliffe. He is front and center, in almost every scene, at high pitch, trying to do what is right for his friends, for his world. As much as Voldemort is his ultimate adversary, and is magnificently villainous, it is true hero Harry, becoming a man, that is the focus of the film.
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| The fantabulously misunderstood Snape |
The other stand-out is Alan Rickman, as Professor Snape. Snape was always one of my favorite characters in the book. Although I never believed him to be a "bad guy," Rowling wisely created a very conflicted person, who no matter what he did, was always involved in a struggle with right and wrong. Rickman, apart from having one of the most mellifluous deliveries out there, was able to convey the complexity of Snape throughout all the films. Snape has been seen mostly through young Harry's eyes, who could never see his mean teacher as a man with deep secrets and feelings. In
Part 2 Snape finally shares himself with Harry and the results are as emotional as you would expect.
Even with a life and death battle raging around him, Harry is smart enough to put aside past prejudicial feelings and listen to what Snape has to tell him. When Harry lifts his face from the Pensieve, Radcliffe's expression tells it all — how it feels to realize that he has been so wrong about someone, how his feelings of dislike have been misplaced. And how he may have put his trust and his love in another and been wrong, or at least not completely right, about them as well. That is the moment when Harry grows up. And Snape gets him there. There are a lot of sad moments after that scene in the story and the film — the
Harry Potter series has been about death and loss from the very beginning — and there are many more deaths to come, possibly even his own, before Harry can move on, but Harry's learning Snape's story is the emotional turning point.
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| Harry sees clearly, maybe for the first time |
As Harry heads off to his duel-to-the death with Voldemort, he is for the first time ever going with his eyes open, with all the information that the secretive Dumbledore never dared share with him. When he meets the shades of his mother and father and godfather in the Forbidden Forest, he is a man. His mind, too, is open, and now he can fully open his heart.
Harry Potter may have originally been aimed at children, but Rowling and her fans quickly turned it into something much more. Coming-of-age stories are always more appreciated by those who have been through childhood themselves. Many of Harry's fans, like the film franchise's young actors, have grown up together. But in watching the films now, it is Harry's journey of knowledge that resonates, which is why I wasn't upset to see him in that last scene, on Platform 9 3/4. Life keeps moving, and so has Harry.
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