How humiliating to be the only member of the British actors' guild not to have appeared in a "Harry Potter" film. Helena Bonham Carter (briefly) and Imelda Staunton (spectacularly) join the "Potter" fold in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," the fifth in the series but the second-best in terms of quality (behind "Prisoner of Azkaban"). It's a real accomplishment that each Potter movie uses roughly the same elements but avoids repetition in telling the story of a teenager who is growing into his powers, both metaphorically (he's a wizard, and a good one) and literally (he's figuring out what he owes the past of his dead parents and how he can shape the future).
Each film - even the less-successful first two - still manages to be satisfying, nothing like a chapter of an unfinished work. Based on the longest of the "Potter" books, "Phoenix" is the most pared-down movie, which may annoy anyone who totes up what didn't make the cut. Me?
I'm thrilled they ditched the Quidditch to home in on the battle between the up-in-arms Hogwarts students and the tyrannical woman who threatens to take over the school: Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Dolores Umbridge. She's like a poisoned cupcake, smiling perkily and pinkly as she spreads bile throughout the wizard world. She's the most overtly political character in the movies so far, and I'd bet money she is not a favorite of Margaret Thatcher.
(On the other hand, with her reign associated with a debilitating heat wave, Al Gore will think she's right on the money.) With Staunton pulling most of the authoritarian duties, "Potter" regulars Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson and even Michael Gambon, as headmaster Dumbledore, have little to do. Director David Yates focuses instead on the kids.
And, not to get all Whitney Houston on you, but he and "Potter" author J.K. Rowling clearly believe that children are the future and that it's not clear Hogwarts is teaching them well.
Facing this stuff in real life is not like it is in school," says Harry, who must use magic in the mortal world for the first - but not last - time in "Phoenix." There are plenty of clever, magical effects in the film (a giant ear is used as an eavesdropping device, and there's a lovely shot of wizards zipping past the Houses of Parliament on brooms), but Yates zeroes in on the real stuff: the question of whether these kids can come to understand their powers in time to battle for the future of humanity. Rowling's sly wit is still in evidence, but more and more, the "Potter" films are interested in serious business.
Adults have made a mess of the world, Rowling clearly believes, and the question is whether young people can grow up fast enough to fix it. The jury is still out in this, the bleakest "Potter," but the final image offers hope: Angry storm clouds darken the screen, but there is sunlight behind them, fighting to get through. Chris Hewitt can be reached at chewitt@pioneerpress.
com or 651-228-5552. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" How humiliating to be the only member of the British actors' guild not to have appeared in a "Harry Potter" film.
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