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Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS – PART 1 directed by David Yates, screenplay by Steve Kloves based on the novel by J.K. Rowling, with Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane and Ralph Fiennes. A Warner Bros. release. 146 minutes. Opens Friday (November 19). For venues, trailers and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN

Let’s get right to it: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – Part 1 is the most satisfying and confident Harry Potter movie yet.

It’s nearly two and a half hours long, it doesn’t have an ending, and it introduces characters and situations that won’t pay off until the second half reaches theatres next summer.

None of that matters. This is great stuff, playing out with the self-assurance of a fully mature franchise. I was worried about the decision to split the final movie in two, for fear it would lead screenwriter Steve Kloves and director David Yates to pull a Lord Of The Rings and retain material from the text that doesn’t work cinematically, just to add texture. (Look, I love Peter Jackson to bits, but you could lop an hour out of that trilogy without losing anything.)

But this works differently. There’s a lot of stuff to be dealt with in Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – at least in the first half – and the movie packs in a great deal of story without losing its brisk pace. Seven movies in, Kloves and Yates no longer worry about bringing the audience up to speed they don’t bother with exposition about Horcruxes and protective enchantments, they just chuck ’em into the mix and keep moving.

That’s what I mean about confidence. Chris Columbus’s films were forever stopping to goggle at CG centaurs and magical staircases, because they were new to Harry (and because Columbus has never understood editorial rhythms). Yates, who took the series’ directorial reins with the fifth film, has been subtly shifting the tone from fantasy to straight-up drama.

There’s still plenty of wand-waving and broom-riding, but the movies now look and feel like contemporary cinema. Deathly Hallows – Part 1 opens with a speech that’s shot like the first scene of The Godfather, and Alexandre Desplat’s nervous score borrows the string-driven urgency of Hans Zimmer’s music from The Dark Knight.

This instalment picks up directly from the end of the previous chapter, Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince. Harry’s mentor and protector, Albus Dumbledore, is dead, murdered by the sinister Professor Snape. Hogwarts isn’t safe any more, so Harry and his friends have gone underground, staying ahead of the evil Voldemort and trying to find and destroy the last four pieces of his scattered soul. (Those are the Horcruxes, by the way.)

There are traps and tests and quiet moments where Yates dispenses with all of the intrigue and menace and just settles on Harry, Hermione and Ron, letting us see how much they’ve grown over the years and how heavily their adventures are weighing on them.

Daniel Radcliffe demonstrated real chops in the last picture, wrestling with Harry’s long-bottled resentment and impatience, but this time Emma Watson and Rupert Grint get to step up, expanding on the flinty push-pull of Hermione and Ron’s developing romance while still playing to the characters’ respective resourcefulness and gormless courage. It’s become the stuff of proper drama now, and I’m curious to see what becomes of these actors once they’re finally free of the franchise.

In the meantime, though, bring on Deathly Hallows – Part 2. After nine years, I’d really like to know how it all ends.

normw@nowtoronto.com

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