Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

*****

The audience filed into the darkened cinema in a military formation, aptly redolent of the opening scene of Deathly Hallows Part 2. However, it was not Snape’s ominous figure that loomed over our heads but the sinister slogan “It all ends here” hung on a poster, set in the twilight sky above a burning Hogwarts. We’ve seen many endings in recent months: the last edition of the News of the World, the last space-shuttle launch and probably the last of the sunshine this summer, but the excitement and anticipation of this – the last ever Harry Potter movie – has blasted those other endings from our minds like a well-aimed Obliviate spell.

And wow, does this film deliver. The first instalment of Rowling’s final volume followed the three heroes from campsite to campsite as they argued among themselves and performed awkward dance routines by lamplight in a tediously sombre prelude. This, the second half, is everything the first was not: thrilling, dramatic and blessedly stripped of waltzing routines from Radcliffe. In essence, Part 2 is an action movie. From a literal rollercoaster ride through Gringotts bank to the final showdown in a Hogwarts looking more like a bombed World War 2 cathedral than a school of magic, director David Yates has crafted a visual feast. The scripting of the action sequences is spot-on, capturing the intense thrill Rowling creates in her novel and combining it with her droll humour. One minute we are astounded as a multitude of stuntmen are blasted across a fiery courtyard, the next we laugh as Neville taunts a hoard of Death Eaters pacing on the other side of a force-field.

The atmosphere of the cinema, charged with the knowledge that this really is the end of an era, is reflected in the eyes of each and every cast member. The first movie was released in 2001, and you can see in every actor’s performance a palpable desperation to do justice to a decade’s labour. Helena Bonham Carter once again steals the stage not only as Bellatrix Lestrange, but also with a perfectly sullen, jaw-jutting impersonation of Watson’s Hermione after ingesting a polyjuice potion. Gone are the days of an awkward Radcliffe repeating lines without conviction – instead his emotion reaches out of the screen (even in 2D) and closes the gap between audience and film.

The Harry Potter series has been so much more than a simple set of stories. The final instalment is as personal an event as it is public. We have invested so much more of ourselves in a children’s story that has evolved from the twinkling innocence of Wingardium Leviosa and chocolate frogs to the desiccation of war and the grim, brutal reality of death. What started out as a juvenile story for children has grown up with those same young readers to transcend fiction, touching on issues throughout the series that were relevant in the lives of every young teenager. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is a triumphant end to a decade’s investment in Rowling’s carefully crafted world. It doesn’t matter that it’s fiction; the issues confronting Harry are allegories for our own struggles. As Dumbledore says with a knowing smile: “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry – that doesn’t mean it’s not real.”