Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
I saw the ultimate conclusion of the Harry Potter film franchise on opening night, and now that the weekend has passed and I have had some time to think about what I witnessed, I have come to two very strong conclusions:
1. This is not a perfect movie.
2. This is a perfect movie adaptation of the book.
Movie 7.1 and 7.2 suffer from the same problem: the source material. The Deathly Hallows book takes the kids out of Hogwarts and sends them all over the countryside searching for the tools to defeat Voldemort. That’s a huge problem that isn’t easily overcome. In fact, the epic showdown at Hogwarts just barely gets me back to positive feelings about the book, because it is so, so good. In the 7.2 film, the entire action is the Battle of Hogwarts, and it definitely exceeds the written version.
Hogwarts castle and everything associated with it is probably the strongest, most interesting character in the entire series. Think about how damning a statement that is. All the magic in the world and it’s an inanimate building that I grew most interested in. In a franchise where most, if not all characters are so purely good or so purely evil, it’s quite refreshing to have something with some layers to it. By the very definition of Hogwarts containing all the magical houses, students, and professors, it follows that there are going to be some complicated interactions with the ever-changing yet perfectly lifeless magical castle. The Room of Requirement responds to both the needs of Dumbledore’s Army and the machinations of Draco Malfoy. It’s just an instrument, and it will do what is asked of it, if it is asked correctly.
The first five installments in the series have an easy to follow formula: Harry wakes up in the muggle world, he finds he way to Hogwarts for the school year, some odd and mysterious things happen, Hermoine saves the day but gets zero credit, and we discover through an expository monologue by Dumbledore that Voldemort was behind it the whole time. I am ok with this. These are kids books. A direct explanation telling me why things happened is perfectly acceptable, maybe even preferable, for this level of reader, and set in a world that has its own set of rules.
Things change in the Half-Blood Prince because we didn’t get the tidy Dumbledore resolution at the end. Because he was dead. Because Snape killed Dumbledore. In a chess match, we’d say this was getting towards the end game.
Nothing will ever be the same for the characters after that bomb goes off. It’s not like you could send Harry back to potions class with Snape after a murder, so in some ways it makes sense to have the Gryffindor trio take their act on the road. We miss out on two very important things when you do that: the setting of the castle, and their interaction with the other players in the story. The Deathly Hallows is really a tale centered on Severus Snape, but we don’t get to see Harry interact with him at all until Snape is dying of snake bites, and even then Snape says just 4 or 5 words about using the pensieve. There is some magnificent action between Voldemort and Harry in this movie. I guess this was what we were really looking forward to as we’ve been building up to this for years, but in movies where Snape gets the screen time and gets to play against Harry Potter over and over again, something felt missing. Again, this is a direct result of removing the kids from Hogwarts, and there was nothing that the movie could do about this while remaining loyal to the book.
Also somewhat missing from a movie called Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 is the hallows themselves. Their importance takes a backseat to the action here. It made for a movie that’s easier to watch, because we don’t have to slog through an explanation of why they’re so important, and where they are.
What the 7.2 movie gets right, besides an honest and true adherence to the novel’s plot, is that the battle scenes are fantastic, breathtaking, shocking, beautiful, while also making perfect sense. So many times in movies we don’t know what action is coming from where, but here, it’s shot in such a way that it’s easy to follow the physical action of the fight. Also, we see some characters push themselves past their limits, be they the self-imposed limitations of cowardice, or more organic limits like a lack of wizarding talent. Come to think of it, the line is blurred about if those two things are different at all.
We’re still burdened with the epilogue where everyone’s offspring are sent off on the Hogwarts Express from platform 9 and 3/4. Harry looks about 30, Hermoine didn’t age a bit, and Ron Weasley with a paunch and some bags under his eyes looks like he out-kicked his coverage to be able to snag a girl like that. It is a shame that the epic tale was reduced to nothing more than “and everyone you know gets married and has babies, the end.” But we knew what was coming, and it’s nothing you can’t forgive for an exciting, thrilling conclusion to the movie series.
It is hard to say goodbye. When the lights went on, I saw several people with tears down their faces. I turned to my friend, the person who brought me into Harry Potter in the first place, and I hugged her and thanked her for it. This movie was truly great, and I will miss having something to anticipate about the series. I missed out on the chance to wait for the new books; I did not start reading them until after the seventh book was out. I threw myself into the movies and the fiction and I can honestly say that the story of Harry Potter is the fictional story that I’ve felt most attached to. The emotional ties I have to the characters are the strongest I’ve felt towards fiction in my life. This movie honors that emotion and that bond in a brave and skillful way. I can only hope that there is more to come from the Harry Potter universe.
7 months ago • Notes