The first scene from Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows has Rufus Scrimgeour, Minister for Magic, intone, “These are dark times, there is no denying.” This ominous declaration sets the tenor for the narrative that follows: The Deathly Hallows (Part I) is undoubtedly the darkest Harry Potter film to date. Imbued with unrelenting gloom and magisterial in its scope and execution, the penultimate chapter to this 10-year old cinematic saga is sure to please purists with its more-or-less faithful adherence to the book. This adherence, however, means that the film suffers some of the same structural problems as the novel, and its cliffhanger denouement — a regrettable artifact of the film’s bifurcation — will ultimately leave fans unsatisfied and craving for more. 

The plot needs little explanation for the initiated. Following the events of the previous movie the fish-face Lord Voldemort (played with evil-villain pomp by Ralph Fiennes) has risen to power. His Death Eater followers rove the countryside of magical Britain, mercilessly killing the resistance fighters of Dumbledore’s Army. The Ministry of Magic has been transformed into an Oswald Mosley-esque fascist regime, except substituting Jews for Muggles and Muggle-born witches and wizards, complete with uniformed guards and purge trials. Amidst all of this, of course, Voldemort’s main target is his long-standing nemesis of the past six novels, Harry Potter, who, with Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, drop out of Hogwarts to embark on a journey to find and destroy the artifacts — Horcruxes — that keep Voldemort immortal. 

Violence is endemic to this darkest of Harry Potter movies. Characters whom we’ve cherished in past movies die one after another, in such quick succession that there is almost no time to note or to mourn their passing. The sense of palpable threat is ever-present. The characters embark on a journey in which they receive no help but from themselves, in which they awake every day not knowing if their loved ones are still safe, in which they go to sleep ever fearful of the enemy that springs up unannounced in the night to assail them. Amidst all this they have a mission to attend to that seems so futile and hopeless that their mutual friendships are strained to the breaking point. All trace of the bright-eyed, wondrous innocence of discovery that attended the first few movies of the franchise are gone, replaced with the grim determination of people who know that they must succeed or face the unimaginably high wages of their failure. 

Amidst the epic backdrop of a democracy defiled by evil, Deathly Hallows also tells an intimate story of three young adults whose emotions drive the dynamic of their relationships. At one point, Ron, disgusted at the trio’s lack of progress, leaves in an argument, forcing Harry and Hermione to survive together on their own. As winter draws near and they continue hiding out in the woods searching for a way to destroy the Horcruxes, Harry and Hermione seek solace in one another, even dancing together to the tune of a radio ditty in a scene that garnered commiserative laughs from the audience. Later, we see Ron return with a means of destroying the first Horcrux they found, but in the process, the evil artifact plagues Ron with a very shocking illusion (greeted by the audience with cheers and wolf-whistles) of Harry and Hermione making out in the nude in order to stir up his jealousy, which appears to backfire when Ron, incensed by the scene, destroys the Horcrux with the sword of Gryffindor to stop the illusion. It’s the story of friendship lost and regained, enduring and steadfast through crises and jealousies, that gives this movie, and the rest of the franchise, its emotional core. 

That isn’t to say that the film is just one enormous emotionally charged romp through the forests of Britain. The first and last thirds of the film are replete with enough blockbuster action to appease fans of the loud explosion. There are wizard duel scenes on broomsticks, a high octane flying motorcycle chase (that actually leads to the Hollywood staple of cars on the highway flipping over and slamming into each other) and a daring heist into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve one of the Horcruxes. Humor has always been part of the charm of the books and movies, stemming from the wisecracking comments of the Weasley twins to Ron and Hermione’s misunderstanding-ridden relationship, and in Deathly Hallows the bleak tenor of the film is somewhat mitigated by some funny moments, especially the scene in which members of Dumbledore’s army, male and female, drink polyjuice potion to act as decoys for Harry, causing some hilarious wardrobe disasters. 

That said, the film’s faithfulness to the book’s narrative structure means that for much of the movie — its middle third — very little happens save the emotional hijinks described earlier, as well as some sweeping shots of the scenery of the British isles. The plot unfolds slowly and in a piecemeal fashion, echoing the book, and the audience, like the characters, are left with the sense of futility, as if nothing substantive is happening save for their flight from one end of Britain to another, avoiding Death Eaters and trying to find clues to the locations of the Horcruxes. The action picks up in the last third of the movie, but just as the narrative reaches a climax the film ends irresolutely, leaving audiences to pick up the threads for the next movie like a two part special on a TV series, except that the wait in this case is six months rather than a week. It is a regrettable by-product of the bifurcation of the final movie into two parts, exacerbated by the structure of the book, in which there is a slow lead up into an explosive and epic climax only in the latter half of the novel. This film has no overarching structure. It is merely the one half of an arc that needs to be completed, and consequently, it barely stands on its own as a complete film, supported only by the audience expectation of a six-month delayed payoff which they believe will come with the second part. For the casual cinema-goer with only a passing knowledge of the books, this will seem like a shortchange. For the committed purist and fan, the only downside to watching this half-of-a-film is the long wait to see the next half.

4 Towers