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I did audition to be a Death Eater once, but I don't hold a grudge.

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Published on: 16 July 2007

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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Order of the Phoenix

Daniel Radcliffe has started to act with his neck. Think Keira Knightley’s jaw, or Nicole Kidman’s upper lip.

He’s fine, though. And the latest HP film, Hermione And The Half-Filled A-Cup of Fire (no?), is entertaining in its depressing, earnest way – not a vast lot of fun, but I suppose we’re all too grown up and terrorised for that now. I would probably have given in to its charms with abandon if I hadn’t been watching The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen before I left for the cinema, because after lines like ‘this is the dawning of a new age of lovely, intimate things’, lines like ‘at least we’ve got something to fight for’ somewhat lose their tingle factor.

I find Gilliam films slightly depressing too, in their syphillitic, decaying, manic way, but Baron is part of a wonderful tradition of very British fantasy; Swiftian, Shakespearean, with a dash of the Gormenghasts – all shifting perspectives, nightmarish visions and unpeeling layers of reality. Tattered around the edges, too, held together with toupee tape and stage paint. HP, which is supposed to be Very English and employs so many National Treasures it’s like the Class of ’69 RSC reunion, has an increasingly slick patina that points to what it is: a tasteful global gobstopper.

Not that it isn’t pleasant enough, with Hermione wearing a very nice stripy grey Gap jumper (must be a welcome break from all that Chanel she’s been wearing in the papers) and plenty of pretty schoolboys and even kittens, and I take complete responsibility for having lost the plot way back in the year I was re-reading the first one, listening to Stephen Fry chortle his way through the fourth one, and catching repeats of the third one on telly. Incidentally, I did audition to be a Death Eater once, but I don’t hold a grudge.

Anyway, it sparked a lovely reverie that’s sustained me through this muggy Monday. Alan Rickman, Gary Oldman, a bottle of HP and me: now that, children, would be magic.

Discuss

  • I love alan

    I love alan. Thats all really. Does he have kittens?

  • I love alan

    I hate keira

  • http://www.benhammersley.com Ben

    The problem with all that neckstretching business was that Gary Oldman did exactly the same thing in Léon – that slightly dubious Luc Besson paedothriller with Jean Reno. So one minute it’s all “oh look, it’s Raaaaaaafe Fiennes doing vocal warmups”, and then it’s “Bloody Radcliffe’s taking the piss out of his co-stars again”

    Still, the whole wholesome Gap Advertiness is starting to get me down. Every*bloody*film* is preceded with critics calling it the “Darkest One Yet!”, which is possibly true, but seeing as they started to the left of Bambi, there’s a long way to go. If the final book, this weekend, doesn’t have either a) Mass Horrible Death and Bleeding, or b) Harry waking up to find it all a dream, and in fact he’s 11 again and back in the cupboard under the stairs, with Uncle Monty and the Shreiky One as guardians and no escape in sight, I’ll be very upset. (Still, as it’s all one big fuckoff Christ/Star Wars allegory, Potter will die to save the world and end up in the picture of the Order of the Phoenix, reunited with his family in cosmic peace or somesuch, probably next to a Well Fuck Me He’s Actually A Good Guy Who’d A Thunk It Professor Snape. Sigh.)

    The Hermi-1 is actually a robot.

  • James

    Sorry, where does the HP go in this scenario?

    I’m terribly pleased and not a little proud that you are apparently the other person on the planet who insists that Munchausen is a good film.

  • Mrs. Snape

    I think the books and the movies are good and anyone who thinks negative of them just dont appreciate genius when it slaps them in the face

  • thehitchcockblonde

    Ah, the voice of subtle and inclusive open-mindedness. Speak up, speak proud!