Synopsis Of Harry Potter Books

Page and Screen - What is the real legacy of Slytherin from Harry Potter?

The tone was perfectly judged. The film starts with a tense and atmospheric scene of dialogue, still drenched in the grief of Dobby’s death and the impending doom. From then on the contrast is expertly maintained, with unique action sequences following moodily shot moments of explanation and reflection. There are clichés and cheesy emotional dramas aplenty but the successful history of the series earns its self indulgent payoff. Well for someone of the Potter generation like me at least. I simply cannot cram in everything I liked about The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 . As a film experience it seems to have everything, from a dark and beautiful style, to gags and heartbreak. I rarely feel completely and utterly amazed and transported in the cinema, but I did watching this. I don’t want to diminish my enjoyment by writing a proper review, which would be biased by my personal Potter journey as well as inadequately conveying its many, yes magical, moments. Besides there were only two moments I can remember that irritated me. One of these was when Harry grabs Voldemort and they fly about for a bit pointlessly (Voldemort is too powerful to grab!). The other was more puzzling than annoying. It wasn’t the epilogue, in which the actors play their older selves on the platform at King’s Cross. I simply laughed for the entirety of that. It was a throwaway moment in the Great Hall, when Harry reveals himself to Snape and the Death Eaters now in charge of Hogwarts. Voldemort quickly knows Harry is there and uses some wonderfully sinister and psychological scares on the students. He speaks to them from inside their heads, assuring them that they’ll live if they give him Harry Potter but if they fight they will die. At this point some girls from Slytherin house demand Harry is seized. Maggie Smith’s Professor McGonagall, head of the courageous and good Gryffindor house, then orders the whole of Slytherin to be confined in the dungeons until the battle is over. For the uninitiated, when first year students join Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry they are “sorted” into houses by a magical hat placed on their head. Every house is associated with different attributes. A quick (and simplified) summary would read as: Gryffindor = brave, Hufflepuff = kind, Ravenclaw = clever and Slytherin = evil. Yup essentially if you’re in Slytherin you turn out to be bad.

Harry Potter's Surprise Ending / Justin Kownacki

His last homage, I too felt obliged to see it on the big screen.  The movie’s release was generating all the momentum and electricity of a cultural touchstone, and I didn’t want to have to try and recreate that potentially meaningful experience on a DVD someday, half-distracted by my dog licking himself on the sofa next to me.

So, on a half-price Monday, I went to the theater alone and I sat by myself.

And I cried.

Probably not at the same point you cried at, and probably not for the same reasons.

But mostly because, in defiance of my low expectations, author J. K. Rowling (and director David Yates) accomplished something I didn’t think they were capable of:

They told the story of us.

First Up, the Twist That No One Saw Coming

I’m not sure when it happened.  I’m not sure how.  I have no idea if it was a sudden change, or if it had been coalescing for the past half-decade, but it finally happened:

Daniel Radcliffe can act.

This is worth noting, because it was the bland performances of Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint that drove me away from Potter six years ago.  It’s not entirely their fault; it’s hard to cast child actors at the age of ten and then cross your fingers that their talent will mature along with their hormones.  By the fourth film, I was convinced that the trio had been unfortunately saddled with the responsibility of carrying a story that their meager talents wouldn’t be able to sustain.

But, as I said before, I may have been wrong.

Not about Watson and Grint, god bless them; they’re still as innocuous as ever.

But somewhere, while I wasn’t looking, Daniel Radcliffe became talented.

Maybe he sat down and watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire ?” And then maybe he got help, in the form of an acting coach, or a counselor, or a traumatic real-life event that gave him the grist necessary to convince an audience that he was physically present and conscious of horrible things.

Whatever caused it, the Daniel Radcliffe who kept my attention throughout this film has come a long way from the Daniel Radcliffe who made me quit the series six years earlier.

Well done, Mister Radcliffe.  Seeing you mature into a capable actor must be as rewarding to me, the casual viewer, as reading about the maturation of Harry Potter himself was for the books’ original audience.