Harry Goes to Art School
by James Roland
In the middle of the summer, when Sony is vomiting Spider-Man 3 and Disney is sucker punching audiences with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Warner Brothers not only had the guts to release a fifth installment of a franchise, but they also had the decency to make it well.
Unlike those other bloated blockbusters, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is a lean, mean summer tent pole. Gone are the amateurish rabbit trails of the first two films, gone is the overdrawn, 40-page intro from the novel version of Order of the Phoenix. What is left is dark, exciting, and potent.
Which is not to say Order of the Phoenix is the best in the series. It lacks the spark of originality that Alfonzo Cuaron brought to Prisoner of Azkaban and the clever humor that Mike Newell infused into the whiz-bang angst-ridden high school epic Goblet of Fire. But director David Yates is still a welcome addition to the franchise family. Like Cuaron, who turned Azkaban into a sleek horror/mystery, and Newell, who turned Goblet into an action/comedy, Yates dares to change genre once again. This time Harry, Ron, and Hermione venture into the difficult and adult realm of British character drama.
Yate’s vision is the perfect adaptation for the deep themes and endless list of characters that populate the novel’s 870 pages. He deftly handles the countless dinner table conversations and lingering, emotional close-ups. The film depends on acting and dialog to tell the story, rather than camera movement and intricate editing. This may sound like a mistake, especially when the movie is being released among the cinematic explosions of mid-July, but Yates excels with these subtle elements and manages to create high tension.
Daniel Radcliffe gave his best performance of the franchise, adding subtly and nuance where once there was nothing but screaming adolescence. Rupert Grint and Emma Watson likewise improved their portrayals of Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, and even the usually wooden schoolmates that surround the trio were noticeably better in their limited parts.
The most notable performance in the film came from Imelda Staunton as Dolores Umbridge, possibly rivaling Lord Voldemort himself for pure evil. Staunton plays Umbridge with all of the frog-faced, pink-laced, sickly sweet devilishness that made J.K. Rowling’s character an instant icon. She captures perfectly the naïve conviction and undertones of repressed hatred that drive Umbridge to near madness.
Order of the Phoenix looks and feels like a piece of fine art. Its visual style is simply elegant. Characters walk up dutch-angled hillsides with ridges of sun-tinted dandelions bordering the foreground. Sun streaks twine their way through the gnarled trees of the Forbidden Forest. Shrunken heads peer from the dank corners of the musty and gothic number twelve Grimmauld Place. This is easily the most visually stunning Harry Potter film thus far.
All of this might make some fans uneasy. It’s true that Order of the Phoenix lacks a lot of the tense action sequences of its predecessors, but the strengths of this film lie in its surprisingly realistic character drama. These actors have now spent five films together over the course of six years, and it shows in their performances. Their characters share the relaxed camaraderie of closest friends. They laugh and cry over small, seemingly benign events that only veteran audience members will understand. Order of the Phoenix is a film for the Harry Potter family, on screen and off.
This strong sense of community ignites the final scenes of Order of the Phoenix. After mishandling a broom flight scene early in the film, Yates jumps headlong into the final action sequences with style. The choreography and visual effects of the climactic Dumbledore vs. Voldemort face-off are so fantastic they’ll leave you gaping. But most of the excitement comes from a single factor that is lacking from Transformers, the third Pirates installment, and most other summer blockbusters – Order of the Phoenix spends enough time developing and falling in love with its characters that the audience actually cares when cataclysmic explosions face them with mortal peril.
This is the most grown-up of all the Harry Potter films, and because of that it sheds some of the carefree romping that filled previous chapters. You may not leave the theater clicking your heels – not while Dementors rain down from the sky, and evil wizards inhabit the minds of innocent boys – but you will be thrilled by the intense emotion and heart-pounding danger. The film contains one of the greatest scenes in the Harry Potter franchise, when Harry is forced to battle Voldemort’s encroaching anger and evil, not with a wand but with sheer will and the love of his friends and family. Somehow Yates directs these moments past the potential melodrama and turns them into powerful, heart-wrenching cinema that rivals any film on an A.F.I. top 100 list.
In fact, the only false note of Order of the Phoenix was the summer release. Warner Brothers needs to learn that these films should premier during the winter months when audiences want to be charmed, rather than pop into a theater for a few thrills and a taste of air conditioning.
