I no longer go to these lavish Warner Brothers cash cows hoping that the blockbuster adaptations of J. K Rowling’s books survive the translation process intact. It leads to too much frustration. Great books almost always suffer loss in adaptation to film since they are two completely different art forms. But as the Rowling’s Potter series proceeded, the books emerged as one grand epic rather than just distinct stand-alone episodes and thus, the increasing complexity of her densely plotted mega-narrative inevitably gets dumbed down in the simplifying cinematic transmogrification.
The movie must attempt to capture the magical world’s war with the evil forces of Voldemort that has now spilled over into the non-magical world while also focusing on Harry and friends teen romantic adventures. This is the last book to be based mostly at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and Rowling was able to capture one last time a period of semi-normalcy in Harry’s life before the all-out desperation of total war in the final book, The Deathly Hallows. Thus, it has less action than other books but the film version knows the audience needs its kinetic excitement so it adds a pick-me-up scene in the middle where Harry’s friend Ron Weasely’s home is attacked by the evil Death Eaters, which surely riles and appalls Potter lovers since the home is supposed to be in fine shape for the next book.
The romantic subplots dominate most of the movie, which is sure to please the teen and young adult core audience; the young actors handle the entanglements quite well and I found myself enjoying these youthful shanigans. But it’s always near the end of these films, as the accumulating cuts and compressions reach a critical mass, when I usually just give up on being satisfied and settle for the film being a sort of “Classics Illustrated” trailer for the book.
One scene is sure to dismay loyal readers or anyone who has grasped Harry’s essential character– in the book climax, Harry is immobilized by a protective Dumbledore when the school’s headmaster and Harry’s mentor is confronted by a would-be attacker. Harry is unable to act to help Dumbledore and he must witness agonizingly his teacher’s fate. In the book Harry simply watches out of sight with wand held out but does nothing to intervene and afterward blames himself for not acting–all this directly contradicts everything we have learned about Harry’s sometimes reckless heroism as the film subverts its title character. ( I must note that Michael Gambon’s depiction of Dumbledore has finally become truer to the book’s gentle and wise character that the late Richard Harris captured so well in the first two films rather than Gambon’s weird, eccentric portrayal that put me and others off so much in an otherwise superbly cast series.) Other changes and excisions could be and I’m sure are being listed at fan websites.
At two and a half hours, of course, the producers would explain that film’s Procrustean bed is the unavoidable place where a large, complex and nuanced book is cut down and shaped to fit theatrical dimensions. I hold out a little hope that the large final book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which is being released in two parts in fall of 2010 and summer of 2011, will have less excuse for leaving out so much of the rich details while still majoring in action, character interplay mystery-and magic.
