These are dark times, there is no denying” are the first lines in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 of a two-part adaptation, Part 2 coming in July – and it’s true: these ARE dark times, especially for film reviewers. Having used up my entire stock of Harry Potter jokes – your very good elf, you cannot be Sirius, etc – back in 2004 or thereabouts, around the time of ‘Harry Potter and the Chalice From the Palace’, I’m reduced to simply pointing out that a new Potter film is now in cinemas, Potter fans will presumably like it, Potter haters won’t, and those who know nothing of the boy wizard are unlikely to start here anyway.
My view of Harry Potter films is always the same: I dread each one before it arrives, get roped into watching it for work reasons, find myself enjoying it much more than expected – then immediately start dreading the next one. I enjoyed Hallows 1, but still have very limited enthusiasm for Hallows 2. Potter films are fun, but they’re all peripheral pleasures; the main story is dull and conventional. And do they have to be so long? We don’t need 20 hours of this stuff, which is what the total will be after next year’s 3-D finale.
Still, the franchise has become a phenomenon. Five of the 20 most successful films of all time (unadjusted for inflation) are Harry Potters. A whole generation has grown up with Harry Potter as a kind of annual ritual, hence the comments you find online from teenagers feeling distraught at the end of an era. The steady infantilisation of movies (and pop-culture in general) is turning up some weird situations: earlier this year Toy Story 3 made older teens nostalgic for their childhood toys, and now Harry Potter is making them nostalgic for the squeaky cherubic Harry of their youth. Hollywood has somehow managed to get the world’s 18-year-olds weeping for their lost childhoods. Crazy.
Harry’s no longer squeaky and cherubic, of course. He’s not even underage, celebrating his 18th birthday in Hallows 1 – we know this because the plot hinges on it, Harry no longer traceable by the Ministry of Magic once he comes of age – though he doesn’t actually celebrate because he’s on the run, Voldemort and his minions out to destroy him. Hermione gets a bit upset, because she’d baked a birthday cake – one of the details employed to humanise her, make her less of a genius and more of a girly-girl (she also wears perfume, which nearly gets the fugitives in trouble), though in fact Emma Watson doesn’t need any humanising. The real problem is that both of the boys (especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry) are rather lacking in screen presence, but that was always going to be an issue, given they were cast at the age of 11.
The actors are important, more so than in most adventure fantasies. Like most TV series – which is what it probably should’ve been, though of course it would’ve made a lot less money – Harry Potter is essentially a character piece. The plot (at least in movie form) is thin, the whole Potter mythos uninspired: a simple case of Good vs. Evil, spiced with the usual wrinkle that hero and villain are somehow linked (“You can’t keep letting him in, Harry!”) and a steady parade of mildly amusing spells and supporting characters. Harry, Ron and Hermione are the real attraction – which is why the films work best when they focus on the trio’s interaction and forget about wands and wizards.
Deathly Hallows has good situations but weak resolutions. Our heroes visiting the Ministry of Magic in shape-shifted disguise – where they briefly encounter Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, surely the most memorable villain in the whole franchise – is an excellent set-piece, the labyrinthine look suggesting Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, but it peters out. A later scene in an ice-cold lake is even worse, ending on a lame deus ex machina. The episodic plot (not set in Hogwarts, for the first time) has the trio going after the Horcruxes, the secret of Voldemort’s power, though a new plot kicks in halfway through with the Deathly Hallows, another set of magical artefacts to be tracked down. This prompts the Tale of the Three Brothers – “I assume you’re all familiar with the Tale of the Three Brothers…” – an animated fable that’s startling and very beautiful. That was one of two scenes when I genuinely started to love Hallows 1, the other being a rather touching bit where Harry and Hermione slow-dance.
The rest is … well, it’s Harry Potter. There’s a subtext of sorts, echoing the real-life debate over multiculturalism and the Soul of Britain: Voldemort is a racist, persecuting Muggles and especially “Mudbloods” (i.e. half-breeds), not to mention killing a progressive teacher of “Muggle Studies” – but none of it goes very far, because there isn’t time. There are too many characters, sub-plots, spells, sidekicks, curses.
There’s also more moping, edging close to existential crisis. Our heroes wander the back-roads of Britain, increasingly dejected. They visit a snowy village, and place a wreath on Harry’s parents’ grave. Harry grows stubble, Ron gets bags under his eyes and loses faith in his friend. The film delights in physically manipulating its protagonist, like a child with a doll (maybe to reflect the fact that Harry, always so passive, is finally becoming an action hero): he gets cloned, uglified, stripped and shape-shifted. Hallows 1 is full of incident, yet – as usual – the main plot isn’t especially rich or complex. I suspect Hallows 2 will be more action-packed (not a good thing), presumably climaxing in the mother of all magical showdowns. Then it’ll be over, and we’ll somehow have to get accustomed – but how? – to life without Harry Potter. Dark days, indeed.
