It's been a right busy few weeks - at home and at work (although mostly at work, which leads to 45 hour working weeks, which leads to less time at home, which leads to busy-ness at home!) - but this weekend we managed to shoehorn in a trip to the cinema.I was really looking forward to the latest installment of HP. Half Blood Prince is not my favourite book, but it's one of those key plot points in the series. The death of Dumbledore signals the arrival of adulthood for Harry, Ron and Hermione and ends with a real atmosphere of change. Up to this point, it has been Dumbledore calling the shots and protecting the children of Hogwarts (although they don't always make it easy for him!) but in the last book, Harry, Ron and Hermione are very much on their own, making their own choices without Dumbledore's guiding hand. It's a real moment of sadness and loss for both Dumbledore and for Hogwarts and the childhood innocence and safety that it represents.
Unfortunately, although I thought the movie handled Dumbledore's death really well (I felt all that pain and sadness that I expected) and the movie was filled with humour as well as emotion, it really left me wanting. Despite enjoying the film, I was left with an uncomfortable pang of disappointment that has taken me all weekend to figure out. My ongoing theory is that if you have read the book, you will not enjoy this film as much as you have the others. The reason for this is that there are certain elements missing that have damaged the plot just enough that any ordinary cinema-goer will not notice, but a HP fan most certainly will. The book spent a good deal of time brooding over the identity of the Half Blood Prince, while the film barely touched on it. The book also had a much more exciting climax with a big battle at the end, in which all the students and teachers of Hogwarts became involved. Perhaps the intention was to cut this out and make Dumbledore's demise more dramatic. If that was the case, it failed miserably because it achieved the opposite. Instead of added drama, Dumbledore's death felt far too easy and far too small for such a significant character.
Something I am glad of is that the movie didn't lose the developing relationships between Ron and Hermione and between Harry and Ginny. This was really handled exceptionally well to the point that these relationships are much more vivid than I remember them from the book. There was some real fun in this movie, some real sensitivity and a lot of great scenes and fantastic effects. But the missing elements will be felt much more keenly in this episode of the series than in any previous one. I may need to see it again to really appreciate how good it is and definitely think a re-reading of the book is in order!
