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Another Harry Potter film is coming to an end. And Harry has in his hands what has been established in the preceding 120 minutes as a very powerful piece of wood called Elder Wand. Ron rubs it in one more time: “Now that we have the wand we will be invincible.” Harry looks at Ron — and Hermione, who is like Ron’s conjoined partner in this movie — then breaks the wand into two and throws it down.
Gosh, we are through… enough of this electrocuting business! Harry’s smile says it all. Boy, our sentiments precisely!
Was that a spoiler? Really? Can anyone really spoil Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 for anyone? Either you have read Rowling’s 5,000-odd pages and know every goddamn character who has appeared and not appeared in the story. Or you have watched the 15-odd hours of celluloid footage and know your Weasleys from your Blacks. Or you have done both.
I fall into the second category. I’ve watched every film at the theatres just like the bored maalkin of the house who lands up in front of the TV every time India plays cricket. I have even enjoyed one or two of the films as long as they lasted on screen. And then forgot about them. Like so many other films.
A year later when I would again recline in the plex chair for yet another semester at Hogwarts, every moment would be spent on tenterhooks. Oh god, will they suddenly dig up some Latin-named character referred to in the 44th minute of Film No. 2, which will sound appropriately Greek to me? Will they casually refer to some all-important conspiracy theory from a flashback montage slipped into Film No. 4? Watching every episode of the most successful franchise in movie history has its consequences and trust me, if you do not belong to that world, those are consequences you will dread.
And that makes me confess — with utmost pleasure — that the last Harry film is not too harsh on he-who-is-not-a-Pottermaniac. It’s an out-and-out masala movie where there is a bad guy who is out to get the good guy. The bad guy has an army, the good guy has friends. One of the bad guys may be good and one of the good guys may have been bad.
Yeah, yeah this must be blasphemy — to make such pop cultural icons sound like Bollywood caricatures! But truth be told, Harry Potter has always been a Krishna-Kangsha good-vs-evil love-vs-hate battle over and above all its strange-looking creatures and stranger-sounding spells.
Thankfully you don’t need to remember any of that on this last lap. The backstory with fresh twists is retold, the complicated concepts explained and simplified and the love stories sealed with proper hugs and kisses (and even kids, in that unnecessary epilogue). Also, the visual blitzkrieg is just so overpowering, you never get lost in the Potter friends-foes-and-family tree. And every actor on screen is visibly so relieved at not having to keep any more secrets, you actually enjoy the performances. (The kids are still ho-hum, but the thespians knock every scene out of the park.)
Of course, the sniffles from the neighbouring seats will get to you. They are the ones who have chewed up every page of every book and revisited all the movie adaptations a zillion times and ACTUALLY think it’s all happening out there. Offer them your hankies and ignore them.
Enjoy the film and be happy that it’s all over. Just like our boy Harry.
