Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

It was a movie day just like any other. My husband and I had split up as we usually do, he to auction off a kidney in order to buy the tickets, and me to get another mortgage on the house to buy our popcorn and drinks.

Yet the line at the ticket counter moved much more quickly than the crowd (I hesitate to call it a line; it was as if a sign commanded us to "form an amoeba") at the snacks counter.

This was not the fault of the young woman behind the counter. It was the fault of a middle-aged man with a bad combover, a pregnant wife, and three kids, who waited until he got to the counter before asking the kids what they wanted, then tried to use some sort of expired coupon to purchase his Happy Meal equivalents. When the employee mentioned that they were expired, he became annoyed and insisted she find her manager. When she returned saying the manager said they couldn't accept them, he tore the coupons from the young woman's hands, snarled "Fine, you idiot," and flung money in her face.

His children gazed on with self-satisfied smirks.

I was obviously amoebaed up behind the Dursleys.

When they finally left, I moved up to place my order. I had to repeat it a few times to the young woman, whose expression can only be compared to that of Laurence Olivier if he'd just discovered he'd lost an Oscar to Macaulay Culkin. I smiled sympathetically. "It's been a long day, hasn't it?"

And then, to my everlasting horror, she began to cry. These were not the gentle sort of tears one always sees in films, or reads about in cheesy novels. These were gasping sobs, the sort that convulses the cryer into a knot of pain. And all I could do was stand on my side of the counter and pat her hand.

Needless to say, when I discovered that we were sitting directly behind the Dursleys during the movie, I was just thrilled. "Isn't it a shame," I bellowed, "that some people are such JERKS that they get their kicks from terrorizing theater employees?" The man's shoulders tensed, and he did cast me a strange, measuring look, but I decided that an outright scuffle in the middle of the theater would probably be frowned upon.

What has this all to do with Harry Potter? Nothing. And everything. That a man who acts like Uncle Vernon could take his own precious Dudleys to a film that mocks Vernons and Dudleys is sad, if amusing. That a man would verbally assault an innocent employee in full view of said Dudleys is horrific, and not amusing at all. And that I didn't chase the whole troupe down and give them a piece of my mind for their cowardice, their lack of grace and manners, their corruption of a children's movie, and their horrid Dursleyness, is just plain criminal. I guess I'm a Dursley, too.


After all that emotional excitement, I was glad that the trailers before "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" were abnormally long. By the time the film started, I was in a reasonably calm state, though the popcorn didn't taste as good to me as it usually does.

The film's opening is a delight, with the wonderful mood-setting of wizard Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris), using his unlighter to unlight the lamps along Privet Drive. This calm opening, before Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane) appears out of the sky on his motorcycle, bearing the infant Harry Potter to his new home, is one of the few peaceful moments in the film. I was immediately calmed by seeing what I had imagined while reading the books brought to life on the screen.

In a way, the whole movie had that effect on me. I was less delighted and enchanted than calmed and comforted. Books are one of my chief sources of relaxation, and I found that the trueness of "Harry Potter" to its source meant that I didn't need to think while watching it. I wasn't engaged on any deep level. There were no surprises, or jolts, or real tensions. In any other mood, I may have considered that a negative; but as it was, I found it enormously pleasant.

Daniel Radcliffe plays Harry, the orphaned boy who discovers he's a wizard on his eleventh birthday, with a rather bland good humor. We aren't really shown the level of his treatment by his guardians, the Dursleys, so his escape into the fantasy world of Hogwarts is not as effective as it could have been. Compare to Charlie's grinding poverty shown in "Willy Wonka," where the visit to the chocolate factory is recognizable as the very highest point in a young child's life. The book, by JK Rowling, was effective at setting up the tale, in making us long for Harry's escape. The film really just pays homage to the book before launching us into the world of wizardry. Understandable, since it's certainly more fun to watch Harry walk through Diagon Alley than it would be to watch him get his Uncle Vernon's socks for his birthday.

That means that much of the emotional center of the book is lost in the translation to the screen. Harry is the hero of the movie mostly because it bears his name, where he was the hero of the book because we wanted him to succeed in spite of his upbringing.

I enjoyed the performances as a whole, from Harris's Dumbledore to the inimitable Maggie Smith as Professor McGonagall to the scruffy charm of Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, Harry's best friend. My favorite, unsurprisingly, is the always underrated Robbie Coltrane, whose giant Hagrid looms convincingly in his many scenes, and whose naive "I shouldn't have said that" makes him seem a contemporary of Harry's instead of Harry's parents.

It is Hagrid who appears to Harry on his eleventh birthday, who tells him that he is a wizard, who introduces him to the new world available to him, and who escorts him to Diagon Alley for his first encounters with magic.

Harry's entrance into the world of wizards is highlighted by spectacular settings--the shops of Diagon Alley, the grandeur of Hogwarts School, the old-fashioned charm of the train, the Hogwarts Express, that takes the students to school--these places are all well thought out and delightfully rendered. This is a world of imagination really only topped by "Willy Wonka."

The characters are not especially deep, relying more on archetypes of the studious girl (Hermione, played by a competent Emma Watson), the smarmy bully (Draco Malfoy, played by a simpering Tom Felton), the clumsy laughingstock (Neville Longbottom, by Matthew Lewis), or the gung-ho companion (Grint's Ron). Harry himself is little more than a well-meaning kid thrown in over his head. The adults do a great deal of creeping about, refusing to reveal important details until it's too late, and generally getting in the way.

But that's what makes the story of Harry Potter so charming. It captures many of the childish desires we experience, or remember: independence; being secretly from another, better family; being powerful wizards or witches; solving puzzles that no adult can solve; and having secrets and adventures.

But I don't think the film captures the essence of these desires the way the book does (unlike "Willy Wonka," which, I think, captures them better than Dahl's book). This is more of a companion film to the book, the way many films have companion books written.

Does that mean I didn't enjoy it? Not at all. It also doesn't mean I wouldn't go see a sequel. But it might mean that as the Harry Potter hysteria fades (if it ever does), that the film will fade as well. The books have legs; I think the film has only wide eyes and exceedingly long arms.

Note: Like the book, there are a few moments in the film that would have terrified me as a child. Very young children won't, I think, enjoy this rather quiet film very much. Young children in the audience were restless in a way they weren't during "Monsters, Inc." This is a long film.