Movie Review - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

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Coming of age has always been part of the subtext of the Harry Potter films.  While being able to watch the cast grow-up, in real time, has reaped dividends, nowhere have those dividends been greater than in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Here, just as Love Finds Andy Hardy, it too finds Harry Potter, et al.  The students of Hogwarts are now firmly ensconced in their teenage years and, perhaps under real world pressure from the lovelorn-centric Twilight, hormones are raging.  Hogwartians (Hogwartites?) couple and decouple; hearts are broken; first-kisses are had.  But make no mistake, where Twilight was awash in overblown teen angst, here we’re treated to an astonishingly adept handling of first love.  For all of its other-worldly fantasy driven plot points, Half-Blood Prince is surprisingly grounded with the weight of emotions that are inextricably linked with young love.  The fact that we’ve been able to follow these kids (and their stories) since pre-pubescence adds a layer of texture that it is almost unheard of. 

Not since the aforementioned Andy Hardy film series has Hollywood offered us the opportunity to watch a cast of characters/actors grow-up on film in the way that the cast of Harry Potter has.  It’s a difficult task and, if Oscars were given for casting, surely this franchise should win.  It’s difficult enough to navigate the pitfalls of casting children.  Imagine knowing that you’ll be casting that child not only for one movie but for seven (and now eight).  Not only do you have to determine if that kid is talented enough to carry a film at 10-years of age, you also have to determine if that kid will be talented enough to continue to do so at 12 and 14 and 16 and 18.  Will the kid become a prima donna?  How will he or she hold up under the scrutiny of the press and tabloids?  Will they even be interested in filmmaking eight years from now?  A wrong choice could doom your franchise.  Not today perhaps, but a decade later.  That alone is reason enough to consider the achievements of the Harry Potter franchise remarkable.

Luckily, all this newfound focus on romance isn’t at the expense of franchise’s increasingly dark and epic scope.  David Yates, after helming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, returns to direct and keeps the Harry Potter films marching to the beat of an ominous drummer.  It’s almost hard to believe that this started as a children’s book/film.  While it’s not unusual for children’s literature to introduce an ostensibly evil villain, it’s highly unusual for that villain to truly embody malevolence without having their evil tempered in some way. At a point when most stories would be rounding-off the rough edges of their villain, Half-Blood Prince is sharpening them.  We are treated to flashbacks of Lord Voldemort (Harry’s arch-nemesis), as a young boy.  However, these scenes serve less to humanize him than they do to show us what Hannah Arendt once famously referred to as the “banality of evil”.   Hero Fiennes-Tiffin, as young Voldemort, is striking in his normalness. 

Being the sixth film in the series, by now you’re likely either on-board or you’re not.  If you don’t like (or are disinterested in) the series as a whole, you’re likely not even reading this.  If you are reading this review, it’s more likely to determine whether or not they got it right than whether or not you should see it.  Allow me to put your mind at ease: get it right they did.  The tension is greater, the effects (stellar as they’ve been) are better and the stakes are higher.  The fact that the adults in the film are being played by a veritable “who’s-who” of British character actors continues to pay-off for the filmmakers.  Each one is committed to adding gravitas to what could easily come across as downright silly in lesser hands.  The writers and directors of these films have wisely put aside their own egos and desire to make the films “their own”.  Instead, they have (wisely) chosen to stay true to their source material.  Most filmmakers, stricken with a sense of self-worth, would feel compelled to take the film in new directions or add their own flourishes.  However, tinkering with the greatest selling children’s books of all time would truly be an act of unforgivable hubris.  At this point, you can almost feel the sense that all those involved know that they are creating something larger than themselves.  They don’t need to make it “their own”.  Their reward is in having been involved at all.

On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and 1 being A Kid in King Arthur’s Court, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince gets an 8.

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