The Fellowship of the Locket: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 movie review!
Last time I saw a Harry Potter movie, I walked in expecting suspense, mystery, and questions. I got teenage dreams being crushed and gossipy infighting beyond anything JKR put in her books, and though I loved the scenes that didn't relate to romance, I really detested the way Half-Blood Prince handled the tension of Voldemort's rise.
Deathly Hallows Part 1 paints an entirely different moving portrait.
Every movie has had an obligation to depict the danger to the Wizarding and Muggle worlds within the first few minutes, if only to remind us what's going on and what's at stake. Deathly Hallows began slightly uncomfortably with scenes of Harry, Ron, and Hermione in their respective homes, preparing for the most difficult year of their lives, and though I liked the way Harry walked through his family's empty house and the way we saw Hermione Obliviate her parents, I felt like it was a poor lead-in to the scene of Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and Charity Burbage, which was far more unsettling and would have set a great tone for the rest of the movie if it came first.
Once again, the transitions were often sloppy or nonexistent, and I was frustrated every time the lights dimmed only to come back up on a new scene with little explanation or context. This was fine when the trio were out camping and traipsing around the countryside, since they really did skip from one spot to the next, and it helped for me to see how they were getting desperate as they traveled. At any other time, I found it frustrating.
This, plus some of the way explanations were handled, was my only major complaint (one minor one is coming up later). I'm putting it first so I can move on to praise the movie, which far surpassed its predecessor in terms of canon accuracy, tension, and just the look of the film. Where Half-Blood Prince only felt dark and threatening during scenes of the Muggle world under fire, or during key moments with Draco and Dumbledore, Deathly Hallows Part 1 had a dreary, bleak tone to it that matched the beginning third or so of the book. From the moment Harry gets on Hagrid's flying motorcycle to the jaunt to the Ministry to the climax, with Voldemort breaking into the white tomb, the movie seems to reinforce that even though there is hope, it's dim.
I appreciated that the movie finally decided to gloss over some of the less important aspects, something that previous films have not always successfully handled. For example, Bill and Fleur's wedding moved right along into Harry gathering information about Dumbledore, though much of what I saw as important was left out. The book was heavy on last-minute information, not just about Dumbledore, but about the Wizarding world (snitches having flesh memory, anyone?), and much of what I thought needed to be in the film wasn't present. Fortunately, we have one more movie to get this right, and the writers and director can choose to illuminate Dumbledore's past as well as the process the trio use to find the horcruxes - although, since a great deal of horcrux-related information was simply dropped from the Half-Blood Prince movie, I'll be curious to see how they handle Harry, Ron, and Hermione acquiring this information without making it seem too quick and easy.
Deathly Hallows Part 1 had some agonizing scenes that I have to say were painful to watch, absolutely gut-clenching, but they needed to ache and echo like that with the audience. Things like Harry exploring Sirius' room, looking for that last bit of hope, were played really well. It was one of those things they could have left out, but chose to include so Harry's desperation is obvious, and so is his sorrow over his chance to have a father again. Or most notably, the scenes in Godric's Hollow, and the following sequence with Bathilda Bagshot. The film played that scene for an eerie, cold atmosphere that leaked right into my bones as I watched it. Knowing what was coming, I had this pit of dread in my stomach that only intensified as Hermione made the discovery that something was definitely, concretely wrong, and as Harry was attacked by Nagini. Or, since they had me sliding forward in my seat: the scenes of the trio being captured and consequently, Hermione being tortured. As much as I grit my teeth at chase sequences during most movies, hating the rushing, shaky camera, I had to say I was tense as everyone ran. I wanted to scream, "Just Disapparate!" just as I heard myself hissing, "Just kill it!" when Ron was facing the locket horcrux. Much of the time, things went almost as I pictured them in the books, and I breathed a sigh of relief at what I saw as more respectful treatment of the characters and their care for one another.
After all, Ron had the potential to come off sullen and irritating, as he did in much of Half-Blood Prince (which was truly disappointing, as Ron is one of my very favorite characters), but the movie showed how the locket horcrux weighed on him and preyed on his insecurities. I felt like Ron started the movie with a more light-hearted attitude, just as in the book, and had to come to realize through experience the weight of the world almost literally stomping on his shoulders. When he returned and saved Harry, destroyed the Horcrux, and tried to win Hermione back over, I was forcing myself not to grin like an idiot. Harry, too, could have been a whingey, infuriating presence, mistreating his friends and spending much of the movie yelling. Instead, Harry gained a maturity that colored his scenes. He took over caring for Hermione after Ron left, trying to bolster her confidence and keep them both safe. This resulted in the most awkward scene of the movie, I thought - the Dancing Scene that my friends and I all giggled and hooted over, as did most of the theatre - but also in some great scenes of Harry and Hermione trudging through the snow in Godric's Hollow, clearly starting to feel not just physically but mentally numb from the effort of hiding and still trying to find and destroy horcruxes. Harry got angry when it made sense to be angry, but the times that he kept a stiff upper lip, set his jaw, and began performing the protective spells, or the times he contemplated the snitch Dumbledore left him, made me better understand why a society might lay their burden on a seventeen-year-old boy.
The movie had to take a lot into account in a relatively short time, and had to find a reasonable stopping point that didn't feel too jarring. Unfortunately for the more sentimental audience members, including myself, that point happened to fall right after Dobby's death during the escape from Malfoy Manor. Harry cradling Dobby in the wet sand on the beach was, yes, touching and emotional, but I could also see Harry ticking away - he's ready to explode, he's ready to act, someone has actually died in his arms rather than falling to a distant death or falling through a veil and simply disappearing. The gravity of the situation keeps building and building, and as Harry buried Dobby with Ron and Hermione looking on, I was heartbroken but I felt the trio's resolve to do what had to be done. It was a great place to end a movie that could have cut off abruptly or meandered on.
Though I despaired of the way information was handled - and have often despaired, during previous Potter movies - I mostly felt the film was well-acted, and that the crushing tension actually helped maintain my interest during quieter scenes of the trio camping, with Ron listening to the radio and Harry and Hermione grasping at straws. I will say that as much as I loved Ron's character development, and as much as I always relish the chance to see Ron doing something other than squeaking or making one-liner comments, I felt like the scenes with the locket began to feel like a takeoff of The Lord of the Rings. One character would march up to another, insist they "take it off," and there would be this moment of glaring distrust between them - not at all unlike Sam and Frodo throughout The Two Towers and The Return of the King. It wasn't bad, per se; it just drew me out of the movie right when I had gotten absorbed and forgotten the real world around me.
With all that said, Deathly Hallows Part 1 was worth the wait, looks gorgeous despite the harrowing, grey tone of most of the movie, and has moments that are legitimately funny even as you can tell the characters are struggling through their darkest hours. The acting has definitely taken a step up from HBP and the characters get development that I feel they needed to regain their dignity and to remind us of the solemn truth of these movies: the world isn't saved yet and more friends and family must die before it will be. The essential information came across as necessary, and I hope that more will find its way into the last movie, and that Deathly Hallows Part 2 will continue to strive to be more accurate with canon than some of the previous films have been.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."
Deathly Hallows Part 1 paints an entirely different moving portrait.
Every movie has had an obligation to depict the danger to the Wizarding and Muggle worlds within the first few minutes, if only to remind us what's going on and what's at stake. Deathly Hallows began slightly uncomfortably with scenes of Harry, Ron, and Hermione in their respective homes, preparing for the most difficult year of their lives, and though I liked the way Harry walked through his family's empty house and the way we saw Hermione Obliviate her parents, I felt like it was a poor lead-in to the scene of Voldemort, the Death Eaters, and Charity Burbage, which was far more unsettling and would have set a great tone for the rest of the movie if it came first.
Once again, the transitions were often sloppy or nonexistent, and I was frustrated every time the lights dimmed only to come back up on a new scene with little explanation or context. This was fine when the trio were out camping and traipsing around the countryside, since they really did skip from one spot to the next, and it helped for me to see how they were getting desperate as they traveled. At any other time, I found it frustrating.
This, plus some of the way explanations were handled, was my only major complaint (one minor one is coming up later). I'm putting it first so I can move on to praise the movie, which far surpassed its predecessor in terms of canon accuracy, tension, and just the look of the film. Where Half-Blood Prince only felt dark and threatening during scenes of the Muggle world under fire, or during key moments with Draco and Dumbledore, Deathly Hallows Part 1 had a dreary, bleak tone to it that matched the beginning third or so of the book. From the moment Harry gets on Hagrid's flying motorcycle to the jaunt to the Ministry to the climax, with Voldemort breaking into the white tomb, the movie seems to reinforce that even though there is hope, it's dim.
I appreciated that the movie finally decided to gloss over some of the less important aspects, something that previous films have not always successfully handled. For example, Bill and Fleur's wedding moved right along into Harry gathering information about Dumbledore, though much of what I saw as important was left out. The book was heavy on last-minute information, not just about Dumbledore, but about the Wizarding world (snitches having flesh memory, anyone?), and much of what I thought needed to be in the film wasn't present. Fortunately, we have one more movie to get this right, and the writers and director can choose to illuminate Dumbledore's past as well as the process the trio use to find the horcruxes - although, since a great deal of horcrux-related information was simply dropped from the Half-Blood Prince movie, I'll be curious to see how they handle Harry, Ron, and Hermione acquiring this information without making it seem too quick and easy.
Deathly Hallows Part 1 had some agonizing scenes that I have to say were painful to watch, absolutely gut-clenching, but they needed to ache and echo like that with the audience. Things like Harry exploring Sirius' room, looking for that last bit of hope, were played really well. It was one of those things they could have left out, but chose to include so Harry's desperation is obvious, and so is his sorrow over his chance to have a father again. Or most notably, the scenes in Godric's Hollow, and the following sequence with Bathilda Bagshot. The film played that scene for an eerie, cold atmosphere that leaked right into my bones as I watched it. Knowing what was coming, I had this pit of dread in my stomach that only intensified as Hermione made the discovery that something was definitely, concretely wrong, and as Harry was attacked by Nagini. Or, since they had me sliding forward in my seat: the scenes of the trio being captured and consequently, Hermione being tortured. As much as I grit my teeth at chase sequences during most movies, hating the rushing, shaky camera, I had to say I was tense as everyone ran. I wanted to scream, "Just Disapparate!" just as I heard myself hissing, "Just kill it!" when Ron was facing the locket horcrux. Much of the time, things went almost as I pictured them in the books, and I breathed a sigh of relief at what I saw as more respectful treatment of the characters and their care for one another.
After all, Ron had the potential to come off sullen and irritating, as he did in much of Half-Blood Prince (which was truly disappointing, as Ron is one of my very favorite characters), but the movie showed how the locket horcrux weighed on him and preyed on his insecurities. I felt like Ron started the movie with a more light-hearted attitude, just as in the book, and had to come to realize through experience the weight of the world almost literally stomping on his shoulders. When he returned and saved Harry, destroyed the Horcrux, and tried to win Hermione back over, I was forcing myself not to grin like an idiot. Harry, too, could have been a whingey, infuriating presence, mistreating his friends and spending much of the movie yelling. Instead, Harry gained a maturity that colored his scenes. He took over caring for Hermione after Ron left, trying to bolster her confidence and keep them both safe. This resulted in the most awkward scene of the movie, I thought - the Dancing Scene that my friends and I all giggled and hooted over, as did most of the theatre - but also in some great scenes of Harry and Hermione trudging through the snow in Godric's Hollow, clearly starting to feel not just physically but mentally numb from the effort of hiding and still trying to find and destroy horcruxes. Harry got angry when it made sense to be angry, but the times that he kept a stiff upper lip, set his jaw, and began performing the protective spells, or the times he contemplated the snitch Dumbledore left him, made me better understand why a society might lay their burden on a seventeen-year-old boy.
The movie had to take a lot into account in a relatively short time, and had to find a reasonable stopping point that didn't feel too jarring. Unfortunately for the more sentimental audience members, including myself, that point happened to fall right after Dobby's death during the escape from Malfoy Manor. Harry cradling Dobby in the wet sand on the beach was, yes, touching and emotional, but I could also see Harry ticking away - he's ready to explode, he's ready to act, someone has actually died in his arms rather than falling to a distant death or falling through a veil and simply disappearing. The gravity of the situation keeps building and building, and as Harry buried Dobby with Ron and Hermione looking on, I was heartbroken but I felt the trio's resolve to do what had to be done. It was a great place to end a movie that could have cut off abruptly or meandered on.
Though I despaired of the way information was handled - and have often despaired, during previous Potter movies - I mostly felt the film was well-acted, and that the crushing tension actually helped maintain my interest during quieter scenes of the trio camping, with Ron listening to the radio and Harry and Hermione grasping at straws. I will say that as much as I loved Ron's character development, and as much as I always relish the chance to see Ron doing something other than squeaking or making one-liner comments, I felt like the scenes with the locket began to feel like a takeoff of The Lord of the Rings. One character would march up to another, insist they "take it off," and there would be this moment of glaring distrust between them - not at all unlike Sam and Frodo throughout The Two Towers and The Return of the King. It wasn't bad, per se; it just drew me out of the movie right when I had gotten absorbed and forgotten the real world around me.
With all that said, Deathly Hallows Part 1 was worth the wait, looks gorgeous despite the harrowing, grey tone of most of the movie, and has moments that are legitimately funny even as you can tell the characters are struggling through their darkest hours. The acting has definitely taken a step up from HBP and the characters get development that I feel they needed to regain their dignity and to remind us of the solemn truth of these movies: the world isn't saved yet and more friends and family must die before it will be. The essential information came across as necessary, and I hope that more will find its way into the last movie, and that Deathly Hallows Part 2 will continue to strive to be more accurate with canon than some of the previous films have been.
"The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death."