Borecruxes

Rating: 6/10 (14 March 2016)

"These are daaaaaark times-uh", Bill Nighy Christopher Walkens in his terse opening monologue, and there's no denying that. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows heralded many things: the finale to a cinematic franchise generations had grown up alongside, the rip-roaring, no-holds-barred finale of a world of magic plunged into chaos. But, more than all that, it was a grim harbinger for things to come. Yes, this was the first mega-franchise entry to bear the suffix "Part I", issuing in a dawn of unforgivably segmented final instalment money grabs from Twilight, The Hunger Games, and, **shudder** The Hobbit. Yes, The Deathly Hallows truly was the beginning of the end.
Okay - so splitting Rowling's 759 page epic had its advantages. Rather than the usual frenzied rush and jettisoning of subplots causing fans to howl worse than Fenrir Greyback, here, returning director David Yates could take his time, allow his film to breathe, and tease out the full drama and poignancy in events rather than blitzing past them.
at least that must have been how he pitched the film to Warner Bros. The polite truth is, Deathly Hallows Part I is a bit of a grim, dull, visually murky thankless mess, with only occasional sparks of the Potter magic we know and love. Mostly, it's fated to be remembered as "the one people mostly fast-forward through in Harry Potter-a-thons".
Yates' third time in the Headmaster's seat, having conjured entries both stellar (Part V) and sour (Part VI), ultimately illustrates his greatest strengths and weaknesses as a franchise director. He's inspired at allowing small, intimate emotional moments to resonate, drawing power and poignancy from understated beats like Harry bidding farewell to his old cupboard under the stairs at Privet Drive or wandering through the room of his deceased godfather. He's also prone to balancing his propensity for solemn melodrama with bursts of the daftest humour at the least likely of times (here, fun with Polyjuice potion sees Daniel Radcliffe struggling in a bra, and *literal* toilet humour). And he can throw down with a hell of a action sequence, as his cracking wizard duels evidence, particularly an opening aerial battle against the forces of Voldemort - too short, but still liable to leave viewers gasping for breath. His Potters, love or hate them, are by far the most fundamentally cinematic of the bunch.
But, with the good comes a heck of a lot of bad here. Amidst ruthlessly paring down Rowling's words to a palatable cinematic length, Yates has a worrisome propensity to forget to direct his background actors, making too many of Rowling's plentiful "_____'s dead!" announcements in ensemble scenes land with almost comically unresponsive thuds, and the frequency of flat (or should I say Stupefied) acting stripping the majority of the narrative of any real sense of urgency. But even more inexcusable is the film's thunderously clumsy editing, lumbering from plot point to plot point stitched together with dolefully lazy exposition like a full-body- bound troll, rushing through or outright excluding key moments (no Lupin confrontation? No Dursleys farewell? Meanwhile, the perfectly cast Bill Nighy is criminally wasted as Minister Scrimgeour by stripping all political tension from his cameo), while lingering exhaustively on the more stagnant moments of Rowling's text. Composer Alexandre Desplat's score is virtually nonexistent, with most scenes, regardless of the emotion, playing out in cumbersomely uncomfortable silence. And let us not forget our tour of stately British countrysides, hosted by The Lord of the Locket exacerbating the worst surly hormones our leads have to offer (and Yates sneaking in a brewing love triangle is enough to make even the most Muggle of viewers feel sick). If Yates' objective was to convey the soul-rotting boredom, frustration, and despair flecking the first half of Rowling's final novel, he outdoes himself, though it's dubious how much is intentional.
Still: magic is might, and the few moments the film comes alive do wonders. An expedition into the Ministry of Magic is rife with tension and political snark (including a welcome return of Imelda Staunton's sublimely loathsome Umbridge) and a jaunt to Godric's Hollow yields pristine Gothic horror, while the shadow puppet interlude detailing the legend of the Deathly Hallows is visually dazzling fun. Upping the FX ante helps bring house elves Dobby and Kreacher to life in a far less eerie fashion (essential, as Dobby's climactic death is the film's only real emotional sucker punch), while Yates certainly isn't afraid to push the darkness to the next level. Both Ralph Fiennes's preening Voldemort and Helena Bonham Carter's delightfully demented Bellatrix get grisly torture scenes, while Emma Watson nearly steals the show, fighting back tears as she erases her parents memories. Didn't expect that when Robbie Coltrane first croaked "Yer a wizard, 'Arry", didja?
Radcliffe, while intrinsically lovable, plays Harry as too bruised and stunned to connect much to here, leaving most of the emotional heavy lifting to Watson and Rupert Grint, who hugely comes into his own here with his most impressively mature, deft performance to date beyond his customary irrepressible goofy humour. The usual supporting players delight with their fleeting bits - Brendan Gleeson's bombastic Mad-Eye Moody is hysterically grumpy as always, and the glorious James & Oliver Phelps and Evanna Lynch bring as many laughs as ever as Fred, George, and Luna, even if Rhys Ifans is nowhere near weird enough to make a mark as Xenophilius Lovegood.
Even with such a dour, unrewarding plot so scant on moments of infectious, joyful magic, Deathly Hallows I still brings the inescapable charm of a Potter film, though its carelessness with pacing and editing strand it at the bottom of the cauldron. If anything, double-billing parts VII and VIII does set up the final outing as the triumphant blowout it should be, though it wouldn't take much to raise the spirits from the mucky affair that is its predecessor.
-6/10