The abrupt beginning was cinematically well done but made me sad. The Potter characters have entered a new age, both figuratively and magically. An age of greater responsibility and greater danger. Of course, I am watching this movie having read books five and six, and wondering what will come in the seventh and final volume. The arc of the written story tells me that there is no going back to the relative innocence of the days of the younger Hogwarts students, where the antics of Hagrid’s creatures assumed such a prominent place.

The arrival of the students of Durmstrang and Beauxbaton was everything I had hoped for. The jerky progress of the carriage pulled by the flying horses was nauseatingly realistic. The vela-like movements of the girls from Beauxbaton were perfect and had the expected effect on poor Ronald Weasly. While Viktor Krum was not exactly as the book described (slump-shouldered and duck-footed), he was believable as a star athlete still learning English. Our three stars playing Harry, Ron and Hermione are maturing well. Their acting now commands enough respect that their familiar adolescent anguish is believably funny.

New characters Rita Skeeter (Miranda Richardson) and Mad-eye Moody (Brendan Gleason) are very well portrayed. Moody’s magical eye is crazy-making to look at, and he is every bit eccentric as we were led to expect. Watching Malfoy being punished as a white ferret was as satisfying to me as it was to Harry and Ron, even if it did break the rules. Rita is fashionable, intrusive, funny, and twists the truth sensationally. The bits about her Quick Quotes Quill strike me as amusing but honest, perhaps rooted in past interviews with J.K. Rowling that ended painfully for the author. Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort is truly scary. His pleasure in his new muscular body and anticipation of cruelty made my heart sink. Whatever the Ministry of Magic may tell you, he IS back!

This marks the first Harry Potter movie I have cried at. I, sitting between my two growing sons, cried in sympathy with the father on realizing that his son was dead. His tall, handsome, kind and successful son, who should have even then been receiving the congratulations of his friends, was very, very dead. I wonder if J.K. Rowling feels at all maternal toward her characters. I wonder if she struggles with being overly protective of them. I hope not, since that would not make for nearly as good a story. If I could write my son’s stories, they would be extremely boring. There would be no need for heroism, as there would be no threat! But of course I am not the Author of their lives and the more I remember that, the better a mother I’ll be. [Jordan, my son, can’t stand another twenty days until Narnia comes out. Also, he would just love to have an ipod nano for Christmas. He loved the new Harry Potter movie too, but did not cry.]

It is hard to see the students of Hogwarts growing up. Just as I grieve for my own kids as they become more responsible for recognizing and responding to the evil in the world, I grieve for my fictional friends. The whole loss of innocence thing sucks, but is an important rite of passage. In Harry’s world, as in ours, it does no good when adults try to convince children that evil can be controlled. Such illusion is no innocuous myth, but a dangerous, blatant lie.

In Rowling’s fantasy world, we can hope that in the end good will triumph over evil in some way. Each person’s life story and the sacrifice of those who die in the battle may be redeemed in the final book, if Rowling is as good a storyteller as she seems to be. There is no such closure by the end of this movie, however.

Meanwhile, our own world feels oddly similar to Harry’s as we continue with the “wars, famines, earthquakes and rumors of wars” (Mark 13:7,8) that have marred human history since the beginning. Every parent looks for some reassurance that the world will remain or become a reasonable place for their children and grandchildren. Followers of Jesus have His promises to cling to. While it seems that evil currently has free reign, we wait for the final chapter of human history that will make sense of this mess.

[bracketed bit earlier inserted by my son, Jordan Thomas.]