I went to see the latest installment of Harry Potter armed with low expectations so that I would not be disappointed. Either my strategy worked wonders or this is the best Harry Potter movie to date.
Don’t get me wrong — it isn’t the book. It will never be the book. Like all the movies, it is a dramatization of a much loved story, probably difficult to understand or follow without the context provided by the book. And of course, no movie can provide as many details as a book. There simply isn’t time.
Yet there were moments when the movie nearly brought tears to my eyes — deaths that barely touched me while I read the book but struck a chord when I saw it on the big screen. Even at the start, there is a truly touching and well-done moment (although one of those that I think would be difficult to understand without the book) in which Hermione erases her parents’ memory of her in order to protect them.
The acting has been generally good throughout the series and has only improved as the actors have grown up, especially the main three, though they are supported by a talented group that all play their parts well.
My biggest complaint is a scene in which, just after Ron leaves the group, Harry tries to cheer Hermione up in a way that I found distracting and out of character.I felt that it added a moment of sexual tension between the two that definitely did not need to be there.
I also thought that in some of the slower moment, they could have brought in more of the details from the greater wizarding world — Dean Thomas on the run, for example, Neville and his crew making trouble up at the school.
But of course, when you read and love a book, one of the difficulties with the adaptation to the screen is that each reader takes something different out of the experience — has different moments of importance that others didn’t share. So how I would have tweaked the screenplay isn’t all that relevant. Far more relevant is how the movie worked as a whole. And basically, yes, it worked. I got to relive my favorite moments from one of my favorite books in a way that made them come to life.
If you haven’t read the books, then I have no idea how this movie will effect you, but if you have, then go in expecting a live-action version of some of your favorite scenes and you won’t be disappointed.