Harry Potter & The Sorcerer's Stone

SPOILERS! Check out the journey blog for the reasons why!

This movie isn’t great. There were a couple of high points here and there, but for the most part it meandered like a novel rather than condensing the story into a compelling film narrative. But I did see some hopeful glimmers of things that could make the overall series great and keep me coming back for more.

First of all, the cast is impressive. In spite of the fact that the story is all about magic, I never once questioned the authenticity of anything the characters had to say. Obviously that would be true of a Maggie Smith or an Alan Rickman. But even the kids are fantastic. One character I really enjoyed spending time with was Emma Watson’s Hermione Granger. It’s not every day we see female characters that ring so true. Hermione is a fully intelligent, fully logical yet fully emotional girl. She’s a woman only another woman could write. I love the quirkiness of the big-mouthed Hagrid and the wisdom of the regal Dumbledore. There’s a lot to look forward to with characters like these.

Also, the layered story is a very inspiring one. It deals with the human desire to be special. And even once Harry finds he’s special, he learns he’s unique among the unique. The way he and the others around him deal with that is an interesting character study in self-awareness, jealousy, and friendship.

The problem with the “…and the Sorcerer’s Stone” part of the movie title is that it takes way too long to get to that part of the story. This movie could easily have been turned into two. One to set up Harry's life and the other to tell the story of the stone. Instead, the movie glosses over some things that seemed important and takes a lot of rabbit trails that take up too much time for the level of their contribution to the story. I guess that’s what makes novel-to-screenplay adaptation such an art.

All that said, here’s what happened:

When we meet Harry, he’s a ten year old orphan and living in the crawl space underneath the stairs in a house owned by his aunt and uncle. Okay, really? Under the stairs? The house isn’t THAT small. But whatever. His chubby cousin Dudley is obnoxious, spoiled and really loves to torment Harry.  On Dudley’s birthday, the entire family goes to the zoo where Harry meets a snake he can talk to.  They’re having a right pleasant conversation when his cousin rudely interrupts. Inexplicably, the glass to the snake cage disappears, making Dudley fall in and letting the huge snake get out. The polite snake thanks Harry and slithers away as the crowd runs in terror. When Dudley tries to get out of the cage, he realizes that the glass is magically back in place. Of course, Harry is blamed for the incident.

Harry’s life is pretty cartoonishly awful until the day a card arrives addressed to him. Before he can read this card, his greedy cousin snatches it from him and gives it to the uncle who destroys it before Harry can see what it is. Every day, more of these cards come to the house, primarily by owl. The uncle has to work harder and harder to keep them out of Harry’s hands. The card is an invitation to come study at Hogwarts, a boarding school for young wizards. Finally, the school sends Hagrid, a huge bearded man to whisk Harry away by force. Harry’s Aunt Petunia was his mother’s sister. She grew up jealous of her magically-gifted sister and has somehow targeted Harry with this adolescent anger. When Hagrid arrives, Harry learns for the first time that his parents were wizards and that they didn’t die in a car crash as he’d been told. It never really makes sense why Harry’s aunt and uncle work so hard to keep him in their house when they clearly don’t love him or care about his interests. I get the aunt's petty jealousy, but what's the uncle's excuse?

Harry leaves with Hagrid headed for his new school and magical adventures. Headed shopping for wizard school supplies, they pop into a pub in downtown London where everyone knows Hagrid and they also mysteriously seem to know Harry Potter as well. Hagrid leads Harry through the pub and into what seems to be a time warp to the past when everyone believed in magic. It’s at the door way to the past when Harry learns that his parents didn’t die in a car accident as he’d thought, but they were murdered by an evil wizard named Voldemort. Harry also had been targeted as an infant, but for some mysterious reason he didn’t die. In all the world of wizardry, Harry is famous as “the one who didn’t die.” Walking through this new/old world, Hagrid takes Harry to the bank where he discovers that his parents have left him a wealthy boy. A vault in the bank is filled with gold for him. Hagrid goes to a second vault and makes a withdrawal of his own on “Hogwarts business.” He asks Harry to keep that second withdrawal a secret.

Hagrid leaves Harry at the train station with instructions to board at platform 9 ¾. Turns out that’s a magic platform. By this point in the movie, pretty much everything is magic. On board the train, Harry meets his new besties, Ron Weasley, who’s the fourth kid in his family to attend Hogwarts, and Hermione Granger, the well-read, know-it-all who becomes a sort of mother hen to the two boys in her life. Once at school, the three of them are all assigned to the same “house” within the school. The houses are similar to dormitory assignments with deeper bondings. The houses compete against one another in games, academics and behavior for “points” awarded by the faculty. At this point, a rivalry has already begun. Draco Malfoy introduced himself to Harry by insulting Ron. In turn, Harry insults Draco and it's on. 

As classes begin, Harry finds he has a natural knack for just about every subject. Due to her extreme diligence Hermione knows much more than Harry, but he is clearly the more gifted one. Harry is quickly recruited to the Quidditch team which is very similar to lacrosse except it’s played on flying broomsticks. Of course. When Harry learns his father played the same position in his day, he’s all too eager to take up the task.

There are a lot of rules at Hogwarts. A lot of rules. And I went to a Catholic all-girls high school, followed by Oral Roberts University. But then again, there are no three-headed dogs guarding a rock that grants eternal life at Rosati-Kain or ORU. Of course in the movies, rules are only mentioned because they’re going to be broken. Harry, Ron and Hermione wander into an off-limits area and learn that there’s something precious being guarded in the school. Sneaking around after-hours again, they learn that Hagrid has been given a pet dragon and has managed to tell some secrets he shouldn’t have. Busted out of bed, they are given detention which is of course spending the night in a haunted forest where they might—and they do—run into the evil Voldemort himself and realize that he is working hard to obtain the “Sorcereror’s Stone” which is under guard in the school. They suspect the professor Snape of being in cahoots with the evil one, but no one at school believes them so they have to take matters in to their own hands.

They break past the three-headed dog, the man-eating plant and the life-threatening chess game to get to the stone’s holding place where a different professor is trying to steal it for Voldemort. Snape was innocent all along, which might have been obvious with another actor, but Alan Rickman takes it either way! With faith and bravery they obtain the stone, thwart the evil plot, kill the bad guy, restore safety to the world of wizardy and win the annual school house-prize. When the movie ends, Harry heads back to his aunt and uncle’s house for the summer. That’s gonna be a great time.

So that’s the first movie down and five to go! Die-hard fans, feel free to add the stuff I missed in the comments. Here's to fun with HP!!