Wednesday 8 December 2010

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1

David Yates, 2010. 
BBFC rating: 12A.


I finished reading the seventh Harry Potter book for the second time a couple of days ago. The first time I read it, I hated the ending, which I thought was a cop-out, a deus ex machina with a sickening and obvious postscript. Either my cynicism has mellowed or I had previously missed something - I think the latter - because I found it much less egregious this time round. Something I appreciated much more was the structure of the story. The first time I read it, it bothered me that so little was achieved within the first two thirds of the story by the trio around which the it revolves - Harry, Ron and Hermione, who are trying to locate and destroy the six horcruxes in which Voldemort has secreted parts of his soul. And the first half of this story is what this latest film adapts, so the action is sporadic, the outlook generally bleak and the achievements few and far between. But that's how projects go in the real world: it's the slog and the thinking, the exasperation and hand-wringing, that subtly creates the conditions required for its completion. And that's what we see in this film. The payoff comes in part 2, which opens next July. No doubt it, like this and all the other movies in the series, will suffer from unconvincing acting. But, like the more recent Potter adaptations, it will have some spectacular scenes of magic, death and bittersweet victory.

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