Deathly Hallows Part 2

More than any other movies, including those from the Pixar studio, the Harry Potter series is one I can only really watch through the eyes of my children. The publication span of the books almost exactly mirrors my older son’s time from entering kindergarten to entering high school, with the movies occupying the same period for my younger son (who starts high school in a month). There was a time, right after the Goblet of Fire appeared, when my older son read the four books in a continuous cycle for what seemed like months, to the point that he barely looked at each page before turning it, so well did he know the lines. As a result I have evaluated them as events in my children’s lives, for how satisfied or disappointed they were; my own reaction has been much harder for me to parse.

Deathly Hallows Part II was a little different because, in truth, my family has moved on from Harry Potter. We went more for closure and for a rare family movie that we were all prepared to watch. The first thing to say is that Part II makes not a single concession to anyone not already seeped in the series. There is not even something approximating a “previously on Harry Potter…” so you have to remember why the goblin is with Harry, Ron and Hermione, that Hermione has parents, what a horcrux is and how many have already been destroyed. Like the more recent movies in the series, Deathly Hallows Part II is very dark, in mood certainly, but also in the cinematography and lighting. Almost the entire film takes place at night or in dark caverns beneath Grigotts or Hogwarts. There are none of the moments of comic relief, usually involving a Weasley or a second-tier Hogwarts teacher, that lightened the mood in previous films. The one moment that approaches the childish exhilaration at the magical world – which suffused the first two movies — comes when our three heroes escape Gringotts on a dragon.

There is a deliberate weariness to the movie. It is the end game, the final battle with Voldemort is inevitable, and the characters no longer have to work their way to that conclusion; they just have to keep going, with all the alternatives to fight closed off. That has the advantage that we get much less of Hermione or some other character pleading with Harry to do the sensible thing, give up on the quest, and tryout for the English national Quiddich team. Only Rickman as Snape and Fiennes as Voldemort seem to be doing more than sleep-walking to the end of the series.

The final battle is satisfying, though it owes more to Lord of the Rings than the Harry Potter series. Hordes of faceless death-eaters encircling Hogwarts are filmed from high above, with fires burning all around. They swarm forward and the teachers, what is left of the Order of the Phoenix, and senior students fight back while the younger students run aimlessly and panicked around the castle. We get the two episodes of closure: Harry’s conversation with Dumbledore in some sort of afterlife King’s Cross station; and then the epilogue, when Harry, Ron and Hermione send their children off to Hogwarts 19 years later. It worked, I think, especially after the mind-numbingly boring and whiny Deathly Hallows Part I, but, for a series about magic, and which began with wide-eyed wonderment, there was very little magical about its conclusion.