B
As could have been predicted, the sixth installment in the Harry Potter franchise is about as slick and impressive a production as one could wish. Everything on the visual side—production design (Stuart Craig), art direction (Neil Lamont and his crew), sets (Stephanie McMillan and Rosie Goodwin), costumes (Jany Temime), cinematography (Bruno Delbonnel), effects (Tim Burke and his army)—is on the absolutely highest level. Steve Kloves’s adaptation keeps things reasonably clear, even for a non-fan (though definitely not for anybody unfamiliar with previous episodes, who will be lost from the very first scene), the exception being the connection of an opening kidnapping to the plot, which is implied but never spelled out. And David Yates’s direction seems smoother and more assured than it was last time around, though Mark Day’s skilled editing has much to do with the picture’s unforced but propulsive rhythm too. And there isn’t a weak link in the cast, with Jim Broadbent joining the established ensemble—or at least those whose characters haven’t died off or gone temporarily AWOL—as Professor Horace Slughorn without the slightest strain.
And yet “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is one gloomy movie. It follows the trajectory of the previous five pictures to increasing darkness a step further than “Order of the Phoenix,” which was already pretty grim. I daresay if the series had started this way, it would have ended long ago. That’s the cleverness of J.K. Rowling’s overall scheme, which hooks young readers (and, in the film adaptations, viewers) with relatively lightweight, moderately scary events and draws them into deeper, more forbidding territory as they grew older along with the characters they identify with. While that’s an effective device, though, it means that later episodes such as this one are tonally quite glum, with lots of crying and shattered feelings.
Since one can presume that anybody going to this picture will be well acquainted with not just the previous ones but also the book on which it’s based, the plot needn’t detain us long. It has two parallel tracks. One involves the effort by Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) and Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) to obstruct the plans of the now-unleashed Voldemort (seen only in dark cloud formations) by securing the means to recapture him, while his minions (led by Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange) take aim at the heroes and their comrades. In this struggle new potions master Slughorn (Broadbent) plays a central role, as he once taught the young Tom Riddle, now Voldemort, and may have important information about how to defeat him. The forces of darkness also include Harry’s Hogwarts nemesis Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), who’s now part of Valdmort’s circle, and perhaps Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), whose supercilious manner has always made him a figure of ambiguous allegiance, but who becomes even harder to read this time around.
Intermingled with this are the sections of the picture dealing with the students’ emerging feelings for one another not just as friends but as romantic possibilities. Poor Harry pines away for Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright) but can’t level with her about it. Meanwhile her brother Ron (Rupert Grint), once he conquers his fears to become a Quidditch star, emerges as a chick magnet, fawned over by the adoring Lavender Brown (Jessie Cave). Unfortunately, he’s not only overly protective of Ginny, in a big brotherly way, but oblivious to the fact that Hermoine (Emma Watson), the third chum in the original Potter trio, has a crush on him.
To be truthful, this portion of “Half-Blood-Prince” doesn’t entirely escape a few “Saved by the Bell” moments, but for the most part it’s handled with sensitivity and tact. And it also has a few genuinely dark moments, especially when a bewitched Ron makes the mistake of eating a box of chocolates intended, I think, for Harry. Some of the most magical grace notes in the effects—some twittering birds, little animatronic figures on the edges of the screen—are to be glimpsed in these scenes, too.
The interpersonal material is actually the better part of the film, because the purely plot-driven half of the enterprise isn’t entirely satisfying. To be sure, Yates and Kloves manage to keep it fairly clear, apart from that opening gambit, but it’s one of those each-side-thinks-it’s-one-step-ahead-of-the-other scenarios that’s likely to leave the casual observer, rather than the pure fan, a little bewildered, and at a few points it lurches forward on the basis of unexplained knowledge (like Harry, we just have to trust Dumbledore in quite a few instances). The big set-pieces, moreover, don’t have quite the grandeur of those remembered from “Azkaban” or “Goblet of Fire,” which remain by far the series’ best installments. And perhaps most important, the surprises this time around suggest that Rowling was a mite too conscious of the “Star Wars” pattern in her plotting. The theme of choosing between the dark side and that of good is folded into the narrative so frequently (in flashbacks to Riddle’s youth and the Draco’s plot especially) that it comes to seem forced. And of two big moments in the last reel, one can’t help reminding you of Darth Vader’s revelation to Luke at the end of “Empire,” and the other of Obi-wan’s sacrifice in the first “Wars.”
Still, “Half-Blood Prince” is such an assured, professional piece of work—and a pre-sold one at that—that it will largely disarm criticism, despite its flaws. And by this time the cast glide into their roles so comfortably that one doesn’t so much notice imperfections in performance as watch the characters mature naturally. Radcliffe now adds a touch of knowing heroism to Harry’s innate vulnerability, and Watson brings a layer of uncertainty to a figure who’d been so self-confident in the past. As for Grint, he’s always had a fine comic sense, and he employs it to the hilt this time around. Among the adults, Gambon is even more reserved this time around than previously, but it’s now impossible to think of another Dumbledore, and Rickman steals every one of his moments with his impeccably snide line readings. Carter once again plays things so broadly that she seems to come from a different movie—a Disney cartoon, perhaps—and returnees Robbie Coltrane, David Thewlis and Maggie Smith aren’t given much to do but look concerned, though Smith rings every ounce out of her dialogue. Another icon of the British screen is added to the franchise’s already impressive roster with the turn by Broadbent, who adds real gusto to the part of an arrogant but weak man with a terrible secret.
Even more than previous “Harry Potter” movies, this one doesn’t so much end as simply stop, and though there’s an attempt to add an undertone of hope to it, the fadeout is on a pretty bleak note. It makes you wonder how the filmmakers will be able to overcome the danger they’ve set for themselves by dividing the last book into two separate features, since the problem of where and how to close the first of them could make for an even grimmer ending next time around. But for the moment committed fans can breathe easy in the assurance that “Half-Blood Prince” does its beloved source justice and, while it may not be the peak of the screen series, isn’t the valley either. It’s certainly not, however, a film that will prove hospitable to newcomers to Harry-land, who’ll be utterly baffled by what’s going on. And if you’ve only been a casual visitor before, you’d do well to bone up on what you’ve forgotten beforehand.