My Last Harry Potter Review: DH Part 2
“Well, I’m back.”
Samwise Gamgee says that at the end of The Lord of the Rings. After all his journey, his heartache, his dedication, and his life changing experience, all he can find the words to say is, “Well, I’m back.”
That’s exactly how it felt for me when I returned at 2:45 AM yesterday morning (although, correctly: today’s morning) from the last midnight showing of a Harry Potter film I will ever go to. I went to the first one when I was 13. I’m 24 now, which means I have roughly aged with not only the characters on the page but the actors who portrayed them on the screen. For me, Harry Potter was not just a childhood experience, it WAS my childhood. It was my innocence and my growth, and it’s done.
Granted, I have had my cry. I grieved the loss of the HP back in 2007. I was on vacation and the only solace I could find was the shower as I wept bitterly, pounding my fists on the walls for what felt like no reason. Harry Potter wasn’t real-Harry Potter was a story! But much like we weep when TV series we love go off the air, so we weep for the boy who lived. Because the bottom line is, we’re not saying goodbye to something intangible or imagined-we are saying goodbye to a friend. We’ve lost a part of ourselves, perhaps a greater part of ourselves, something we aspired to be. You lose it, and it feels gone forever. But as JK Rowling said at the London premiere, Hogwarts, whether on the page or on the screen, will always be there to welcome us home.
God knows, for me, the screen has not been my personal greatest of great Harry Potter refuges. I have criticized them far more than I have ever praised them. I have considered Steve Kloves a personal enemy and have lamented time and time again laborious direction that pushed and pulled the films in no clear direction. The films have failed greatly many times, but they have also succeeded. And this time, this last time, they may count their score in the later; Deathly Hallows Part Two is most definitely a success.
This does not mean it is without it’s failings. This does not mean that it is perfect. For example, there are still bits of clunky dialogue characteristic of a Kloves’ production. And I will never understand how, after years of telling Harry he has his mother’s eyes, after Snape telling Harry something very, very important to his character about Harry’s mother’s eyes, they could not find a young girl to cast as Lily who actually HAD Harry’s eyes. Young Lily is adorable and precocious and unfortunately very laden with BROWN eyes.
You see? It’s the little things for me. But as a perfectionist and an extreme fan, you must then take me at my word-this film is good. It is really, really good.
It achieves grace in its balance of action and exposition. The action sequences are never without emotional consequences, and the tears are never left too long without a laugh. The climactic end battle between Harry and Voldemort is masterfully constructed, building up their battle with that of the ultimate demise of the last Horcrux and the rise of a new hero.
And that’s the thing: Harry Potter is the hero. He is the brave boy who stands up straight when he has to fall, but he is not the only hero. Every single character here who fights for good, no matter how small or inconsequential the part, is a hero in this movie. Even the castle itself and its knights become heroes. As Neville explains, Harry Potter is more an idea than a person. He has ascended to being the symbol of good; his heroic journey is at an end.
Steve Kloves has actually achieved something miraculous in this script as well: he remains in character with the books. And not only that, he seems to have learned something from his predecessor’s before him, from the writers that helped make hero-films great. As it always should have been, Ron finally seems as the Han Solo of the group, Harry the Luke Skywalker, and Hermione the Princess Leia. There are actually perfect parallels between this film and A New Hope. Princess Leia/Hermione shout, after being caught under the fire of blasters/wands, “Somebody has to save us kids!”/”We can’t just stand here, we’re got to do something!”. And just as Han Solo runs down the hallway on the Death Star after the Storm troopers, brazenly yelling like a fool, so Ron runs down the hallways of junk in the Room of Requirement, yelling like a fool, to chase down Draco and company. Han Solo/Ron must then immediately turn around and yell all the way back, as what was waiting for them was not quite what was expected.
It’s almost as though it took the Harry Potter films eight tries to understand how all of this really comes together as a good film on screen. Far more so than the stilted dialogue and simple character choices of almost all the previous films, this movie rings true on levels beyond its predecessors because, at the heart of it, we remember what this film is about. It’s about people, ordinary people with extraordinary gifts, sacrificing and fighting for what they believe in. It is the people, more so than any effects or any part of the magical world, that brought all of us to Harry Potter, and will bring us back time and time again.
The movie gets it right. And it sings because of it.
So, what now? And, for me, are there to be more solitary weeps in the shower because it’s all over? I do not know. I did not cry like I thought I would in the theater-it was more majestic single tears dripping dramatically and slowly down my face at opportune times. I actually think that this is a movie that, strangely enough, might have benefited from me NOT knowing how it was going to turn out. How it would have been for me to learn about Snape and Lily and see Alan Rickman’s performance there, utterly surprised by it. How it would have been for me to find out that Harry was to die after all, that he was meant to. At the moment, I truly feel at peace with the end of all things. But I absolutely want to see this movie again. Because I suppose that even after all of this time, after all this talk of the end, it never really does end. Hogwarts is our home. So, thanks, Harry. And every time I get a wee bit lonely for you, I can always open up a book, or watch this movie, and say, “Well, I’m back.”
Samwise Gamgee says that at the end of The Lord of the Rings. After all his journey, his heartache, his dedication, and his life changing experience, all he can find the words to say is, “Well, I’m back.”
That’s exactly how it felt for me when I returned at 2:45 AM yesterday morning (although, correctly: today’s morning) from the last midnight showing of a Harry Potter film I will ever go to. I went to the first one when I was 13. I’m 24 now, which means I have roughly aged with not only the characters on the page but the actors who portrayed them on the screen. For me, Harry Potter was not just a childhood experience, it WAS my childhood. It was my innocence and my growth, and it’s done.
Granted, I have had my cry. I grieved the loss of the HP back in 2007. I was on vacation and the only solace I could find was the shower as I wept bitterly, pounding my fists on the walls for what felt like no reason. Harry Potter wasn’t real-Harry Potter was a story! But much like we weep when TV series we love go off the air, so we weep for the boy who lived. Because the bottom line is, we’re not saying goodbye to something intangible or imagined-we are saying goodbye to a friend. We’ve lost a part of ourselves, perhaps a greater part of ourselves, something we aspired to be. You lose it, and it feels gone forever. But as JK Rowling said at the London premiere, Hogwarts, whether on the page or on the screen, will always be there to welcome us home.
God knows, for me, the screen has not been my personal greatest of great Harry Potter refuges. I have criticized them far more than I have ever praised them. I have considered Steve Kloves a personal enemy and have lamented time and time again laborious direction that pushed and pulled the films in no clear direction. The films have failed greatly many times, but they have also succeeded. And this time, this last time, they may count their score in the later; Deathly Hallows Part Two is most definitely a success.
This does not mean it is without it’s failings. This does not mean that it is perfect. For example, there are still bits of clunky dialogue characteristic of a Kloves’ production. And I will never understand how, after years of telling Harry he has his mother’s eyes, after Snape telling Harry something very, very important to his character about Harry’s mother’s eyes, they could not find a young girl to cast as Lily who actually HAD Harry’s eyes. Young Lily is adorable and precocious and unfortunately very laden with BROWN eyes.
You see? It’s the little things for me. But as a perfectionist and an extreme fan, you must then take me at my word-this film is good. It is really, really good.
It achieves grace in its balance of action and exposition. The action sequences are never without emotional consequences, and the tears are never left too long without a laugh. The climactic end battle between Harry and Voldemort is masterfully constructed, building up their battle with that of the ultimate demise of the last Horcrux and the rise of a new hero.
And that’s the thing: Harry Potter is the hero. He is the brave boy who stands up straight when he has to fall, but he is not the only hero. Every single character here who fights for good, no matter how small or inconsequential the part, is a hero in this movie. Even the castle itself and its knights become heroes. As Neville explains, Harry Potter is more an idea than a person. He has ascended to being the symbol of good; his heroic journey is at an end.
Steve Kloves has actually achieved something miraculous in this script as well: he remains in character with the books. And not only that, he seems to have learned something from his predecessor’s before him, from the writers that helped make hero-films great. As it always should have been, Ron finally seems as the Han Solo of the group, Harry the Luke Skywalker, and Hermione the Princess Leia. There are actually perfect parallels between this film and A New Hope. Princess Leia/Hermione shout, after being caught under the fire of blasters/wands, “Somebody has to save us kids!”/”We can’t just stand here, we’re got to do something!”. And just as Han Solo runs down the hallway on the Death Star after the Storm troopers, brazenly yelling like a fool, so Ron runs down the hallways of junk in the Room of Requirement, yelling like a fool, to chase down Draco and company. Han Solo/Ron must then immediately turn around and yell all the way back, as what was waiting for them was not quite what was expected.
It’s almost as though it took the Harry Potter films eight tries to understand how all of this really comes together as a good film on screen. Far more so than the stilted dialogue and simple character choices of almost all the previous films, this movie rings true on levels beyond its predecessors because, at the heart of it, we remember what this film is about. It’s about people, ordinary people with extraordinary gifts, sacrificing and fighting for what they believe in. It is the people, more so than any effects or any part of the magical world, that brought all of us to Harry Potter, and will bring us back time and time again.
The movie gets it right. And it sings because of it.
So, what now? And, for me, are there to be more solitary weeps in the shower because it’s all over? I do not know. I did not cry like I thought I would in the theater-it was more majestic single tears dripping dramatically and slowly down my face at opportune times. I actually think that this is a movie that, strangely enough, might have benefited from me NOT knowing how it was going to turn out. How it would have been for me to learn about Snape and Lily and see Alan Rickman’s performance there, utterly surprised by it. How it would have been for me to find out that Harry was to die after all, that he was meant to. At the moment, I truly feel at peace with the end of all things. But I absolutely want to see this movie again. Because I suppose that even after all of this time, after all this talk of the end, it never really does end. Hogwarts is our home. So, thanks, Harry. And every time I get a wee bit lonely for you, I can always open up a book, or watch this movie, and say, “Well, I’m back.”