Search found 1 match: Rupert Grint

there's a moment midway through harry potter and the deathly hallows: part 1 (hereafter harry potter 7a) when harry and hermione return to the place of harry's birth, and in reply to hermione's suggestion that they should've come disguised, harry says "no. this is where i was born. i'm not returning as someone else". it's one of about a thousand statements in this series of films which rings completely hollow and yet has to be said anyway, if only to stave off the gnawing void a little longer.

fucked up beyond repair, harry potter 7a is a scarred and rotted husk of a children's movie, its horrors mostly left unspoken and its dramas as intimate as a knife to the gut. if shit got real in order of the phoenix, it's realer still now; godlike dumbledore has fallen, the ministry is infiltrated, people are going missing all over and you can be sure they aren't just sat around unharmed, waiting to be rescued. thrust into this environment isn't a gang of cocksure heroes protected by their superpowers, but a trio of fumbling children, trying so hard to be adults before their time--incidentally precisely how radcliffe, grint and watson (probably unconsciously) play them. far from indestructible, these are little boys and girls fending for themselves in an unforgiving wood much like hagrid's half brother of a couple films prior, and their minds are as fraught with peril as anything assailing their external defenses. ron weasley (rupert grint), that object of comic relief and a million preteen crushes, has grown into the kind of man--pale, bruised, sunken-eyed--who sits by the radio hoping that the list of missing wizards doesn't include his loved ones, and who'll tell his best friend that for him the stakes are lower because his parents are dead, and he has no family. a bubbling over of savage resentment between two proud, vulnerable men with the weight of the world on their shoulders (quite literally, as the horcrux they carry burdens its carrier's psyche in a similar way to sauron's ring); try watching the early films again with THAT exchange in mind.

the innocent world of flamboyant gimmicks that warmed our earnest hero's heart in the philosopher's stone is long dead, now a dreadful wasteland of dark clouds and darker shadows, where characters major and minor can be murdered, tortured or maimed at a moment's notice. the boy who set out on this journey clings to existence, but just barely; you have to remember that this was a child raised by father figures torn down again and again before our very eyes. not simply killed (although yes, they all end up that way), understand, but deromanticised, revealed to be mere men, riddled with character flaws; their follies barely forgivable, their sacrifices in turn newly heroic. harry's father, idealised for so long, is revealed in the most complex moment of the series to be a merciless bully who indirectly inspired snape's torment of his own son; sirius, the caring godfather, frequently allowed envy, longing and a rash temper to muddy his perspective; and now dumbledore, already shorn of his role as indestructible safety-net via that wonderful scene in the cave in half-blood prince (foreshadowing his subsequent death), is revealed by a few choice comments to be lacking ethically, too. and of course, in order of the phoenix harry himself becomes a father figure to his schoolmates, to everybody in need of hope in the face of the insurmountable evil that approaches, and perhaps to the hordes and hordes of readers worshipping at the altar of this series as well; he may be responsible not just for the state of one world, but two.

he's no superhero either; shit, recall for example the scene in half-blood prince where he near-kills draco malfoy at a time when that aryan slimeball may be finding his first light; recall the scores of moments throughout the latter half of the series where harry endangers himself or somebody else by failing to surpress his baser instincts, letting himself get distracted by his emotions and biases, his own martyr complex. harry potter has always operated on a metaphorical level, with triumph over voldemort dependent on our heroes first conquering the evil within themselves, and this is why the whole thing feels so fraught with danger; hard to be safe if you're fighting your own shadow. whenever something bad happens in this series, it comes from within; the wavering of their idealism, tolerance and discipline. the lesson that rowling and yates teach again and again is that heroism isn't about being pure--no major character comes close in this picture, each and every one struggling with their own vices-- rather, it's about refusing to let your inner asshole take control, no matter how justified it may seem. voldemort's greatest weapon, literalised in an amazing sequence where a hauntingly scornful apparition of ron's girlfriend hermione indulges in a seriously fucking carnal snog with his best friend, is manipulating his enemies into defeating themselves by playing on their deepest fears and needs.

perhaps the most affecting thing about harry potter 7a is that for all their festering resentment, for the wounds in their eyes reaching out far beyond their years, our heroes seem more like children than ever in a world that's growing up faster than they could ever hope to. there's a transcendent scene after ron's brutal exit where harry and hermione, the air deathly thick between them, spontaneously dance to a funereal nick cave tune without cuteness or romance, only a sense of clinging on; to their goal, to one another, to whatever tiny rays of light still remain for them both. another, where hermione's suggestion "maybe we should just stay here harry.... grow old..." is greeted by silence and a failed attempt at a smile, broke my fucking heart again. earlier on, the death of a reasonably major character is announced, and after a few seconds of silence, the film moves on; no tears, no burial, no closure, no nothing. it's fucking miraculous; a mainstream children's blockbuster paced like a funeral, wherein 90% of communication is wordless and overt tonal signifiers are unanimously rejected, where every moment of tenderness or humour or exhilaration is framed by fear, despair and death. fights aren't accompanied by a tumultuous score but an eerie silence punctuated by short, violent bursts of sound. there are bad jokes galore in this thing, but they fall flat in the way that jokes always fall flat in the midst of such knife-edge tension; they float off into the oppressive sky accompanied at best by a few nervous chuckles, or wry, sad smiles.

what else? there's a moment where hermione mercifully erases the memory of one of their murderous pursuers, jarring chillingly against an earlier scene where she erases herself from her parents' memories to avoid them being endangered by just this kind of man. a fable is animated with astonishing wonder, spinning the tale of a man reviving his dead wife only for her to be so "sad and cold" that he hangs himself, visualised in silhouette; yeah, gotta live kids' cinema these days. i like that the lying scheming bitch journalist rita skeeter, bane of harry's existence in earlier films, has released an exposé of the man with all the answers which may in fact be the most authentic and revealing portrayal he could ever be privy to, but he doesn't pursue it; it reminds of previous films when harry refuses to learn valuable skills because the man teaching them, severus snape, is a suspected enemy--the fact that those suspicions are confirmed at this point in the story doesn't excuse the folly of ignoring his help. name another mainstream picture where the heroes are held so completely responsible for their own failings.

splitting the final book into two films was one of the greatest decisions any studio has ever made; that rushed series of arbitrary sub-quests and climax upon climax upon climax can truly breathe now, evolve at its own pace, provide this story with the patient, slow-burning finale it really deserves. yes, there's clumsiness in places--bellatrix and dobby are tired gimmicks both, and rupert grint remains a pretty shitty dramatic actor particularly in the reunion scene--but if anything, the way they recall the innocuous gimmickry of earlier films renders them haunting, too, in their own ways. voldemort (ralph fiennes) himself never carries the amount of menace he should, but i wonder sometimes if that's not part of the plan, too; voldemort is, after all, just a man, a mirror image of harry who happens to have chosen the other path. there's something quite stunted, almost boyish in voldemort's rages which makes me pine for a more in-depth visualising of the flashbacks in the books; the films only examine the background behind his persona in a disappointingly cursory way.

still, harry potter 7a is disquieting in a way that resembles nothing i've ever seen, and fucking illuminating with it; if this isn't the most tightly-coiled and resonant film of the series (that honour goes to order of the phoenix) it's a step up from its sporadically brilliant predecessor, concluding a childrens' franchise's coming of age in a way that truly reflects how brutal and terrifying and tragic the slow death of childhood innocence must always necessarily be. nuanced, tender and raw, it possesses the wisdom and perspective borne of an understanding that humanity is defined, and ultimately given meaning, by an endless struggle with its own flaws and frailties. it may do more to save this generation of kids than anything that could ever be learned in school.