HP7 only proves one thing
It has been thirteen years since the release of the first Harry Potter book which I read back then as a young teenager and nine years since the first Harry Potter film came out and as I am writing this review I am painfully aware of the fact that this is about as sacred a cow as films (and books) go. The superlatives speak for themselves: fastest selling book of all time, highest grossing film ever. A social and publishing phenomenon. A publication which successfully crossed genres mixing fantasy and coming of age and a film which (seemingly) united generations.
Starting with such pedigree and given the fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the build-up to a crescendo that’s taken six other films to help materialise you’d expect nothing less than a rapturous review. I admit I was psychologically ready to give you one but the film itself made me change my mind.
It’s not that there have been six other films and by now we are all beginning to get a little tired of HP. Nor is it that the formula has changed. On the contrary all the elements which have helped make the franchise successful are there: Harry is struggling with his own demons and his battle against an evil so mighty he simply cannot beat. Hermione is still the love interest between two boys. Ron is still ‘everyman’ who gets the girl and there is still a bevy of characters, good and bad, whom we have come to love and hate over the best part of the last decade. So why does HP7 leave us feeling indifferent?
The problem lies in transition. Much of the seventh book Rowlings wrote was criticised for being slow and indulgent. There appeared to be a laziness in the portrayal of the characters which the other books lacked and the film suffers from many of the same faults. Looked at individually there are scenes in the film which are flawlessly executed and work like a dream but a film, unfortunately, is more than just a sum of its parts. We care and become engaged because the pacing is just right and the visual code the film maker has put in is sufficiently accessible to us to be ‘inside’ the film as we decode it in our mind’s eye.
This is a crucible upon which films can succeed or fail. Make the visual code too obtuse or too complex and you get visual puzzles no one is 100% sure what they are about (re: Donny Darko and Repo Man) but which, however, go on to become classics. Make the code so obvious that it begins to feel spoon-served to the audience and you get a film like HP7 – great to look at but without spirit.
Does this mean that HP7 will fail? Had it been the anywhere else in the series the answer would have been yes and it would have deserved to. Being the last of six successful films each of which had spirit in spades HP7: Part I is a transitory one. You know you have to go and see it because seeing Part II would make little sense and the film makers know it too and they know you know it. Just like in the book, Part II is going to be a climax which will be hard to forget (I suspect). HP7 proves that authors and film makers are capable of making commercial decisions when you have little choice and they know they hold you hostage.
Lower your expectations and you will find HP7 passable. If you have a little patience and can withstand not knowing what the conversations about it are really about wait until it comes out on DVD, otherwise, spend your hard-earned loot but do not expect to have your socks blown off. Not just yet, at least (I hope).
