Its spring of 2000, and I’m browsing a bookshop in Heathrow on the way home from a stay in London. There are piles of what appears to be this little paperback children’s book everywhere. I fly back to America to find nearly the same thing in every bookstore, and yet it takes me until later that same year with the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to be engulfed by the commercial juggernaut that made a rich woman of J.K. Rowling. Today, July 15th, theaters will be flooded with costume-wearing uber-fans and the simply curious alike to watch the final part of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on the big screen. What they will find is another surprisingly close representation of the book, with cinematic caveats. There are no spoilers, here or in the movie.
Many of us moderate fans are ready to bid farewell to the series, and this final movie does that rather well. The sad final state of the Hogwarts castle, such a magnificent spectacle in Sorcerer’s Stone, telegraphs the series’ termination through its near-destruction. Though the unfortunate “elder Harry” Hogwart’s Express platform scene is included in the movie, the viewer gets the feeling this is Rowling & David Yates’ way of saying there will not be any more no matter how much money you throw at them. Sitting through some of the more depressing and torturous scenes only served to remind me that as a viewer I’d become a little too attached to a completely fictional character, so I’m grateful to Rowling for standing firm on leaving the ending for Harry as it is.
Our elder son, now six, loves the early Harry Potter movies and books, and so the question has arisen about whether or not we’d let him see Deathly Hallows. Many things stand out as unacceptable viewing for smaller children in this finale, the most obvious of which is the brutality of Snape’s death. It seems a curious feature of Rowling’s work that the older the student characters of the books get, the less appropriate for youngsters the series becomes. The literary implication of a maturing readership makes Rowling far more than a children’s author in my estimation. The movie franchise has been lucky to have retained actors that have aged into their characters very well. If our eldest is still interested when he has a few more birthdays under his belt, I’m sure he’ll be able to watch Deathly Hallows in 3D at home.
If you’ve been living under a rock for the last two decades and have just now come out to see what movies are opening this weekend, I suggest attempting a showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part Two. FYI, there’s swearing (get’em, Mrs. Weasly!), explosions, and blood and lots of things to cry at, but it’s an excellent flick. If you see folks wandering around in black robes and funny glasses, just go with it, they’re mostly harmless.
