Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows - Part 1 (2010) - A Slow Burning Yet Thrilling Build Up!

After being disappointed by the balance of plot points in The Half Blood Prince, this was going to be make or break for the final story in the Harry Potter series. And while the decision to split this final story into two parts would begin an aggravating trend for Hollywood following this film's release, splitting Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows into two parts was actually beneficial, giving the audience plenty of time to build up the suspense and tension for this final battle.

Now a lot of people do raise concern over how slow and dull this half of the narrative is, and it's hard not to agree with that. This is principally down to the structure of the book being adapted. Each of the books was written using the hero's journey as a story structure. Having only the first half of that story make up the entirety of a film structure can cause the audience to feel unsatisfied. In my case though, I feel this is a huge benefit to this film. Demonstrating the way our main trio becomes isolated from the rest of the world is a really good way of not only exploring the wizarding world in the middle of this war torn time, but to also really test our leading trio's friendship. These moments of tension and dread between our leads demonstrates how far these young actors have come from the first film, and also for once, it actually feels as if the friendship between Harry, Hermione and Ron is at a make or break moment. Radcliffe, Watson and Grint give their best performances so far, Grint in particular really demonstrates the stress and turmoil in Ron's mind.

Another key aspect I found smart was how they utilised Ron's radio as a way of speeding up the amount of exposition that needed to be conveyed. They took information that would be found out originally through talking scenes in the book would now be conveyed through this radio. It also helps reinforce the danger being faced by not only our leads but also the rest of the wizarding world. I will admit though, that the time spent travelling and camping took up too much time and did slow the film down, which when you have a film that's already designed to be a slow build up to part two. I would've cut the film's run time down by at least 10 minutes in order to reduce the amount of slow moments there are clumped together.

Additionally, certain scenes which were created for the film have consequences on how the characters are conveyed. Noticabley, the dance between Harry and Hermione which while being a nice little break from the tension, it completely contradicts the established relationships. The film goes about trying to reinforce this idea of a building romantic connection between these two, despite the fact that Ron and Hermione having feelings for one another being evident for quite a long time, and even in this film. It also goes against the idea that Harry has feelings for Ginny, which baring one blink and you'll miss kissing scene is completely ignored in this film. It goes to show that the writer, Steve Kloves isn't able to honour the source material all the time. It feels that as the films have gone on, his writing has taken more liberties with how faithful the films end up being. It's worth mentioning that his writing is generally very faithful, yet there is still moments of scenes being added or rewritten for no given reason. Some additions are beneficial to the story, but other times it contradicts what is established, and goes against the story so far.

At the end of the day though, I still feel this film was a crucial part of the story. Despite these issues, it plays an important part in the overarching narrative. Much like films such as The Empire Strikes Back and Infinity War, this story is the moment of down beaten dread, which encourages the audiences to back the heroes on their final journey. By the end of this film, all hope seems lost, and the prospects of our heroes coming out victorious is very slim, meaning that the final outcome in Deathly Hallows Part 2 is all the more rewarding for both the characters and the audiences that have watched along and often grown with them.

On it's own, it can be hard to enjoy Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows Part 1 on it's own merits without Part 2 being there to round off the hero's journey. But it does have a lot of benefits to it. We see our leading trio get pushed to the edge, and have the dread of impending doom to build up the prospect of victory in the final film to come. It still holds a lot of entertainment value if you are willing to put up with a lot of slow moments of tension building. After sitting through the first half of this final story, the anticipation of this final battle feels all the more thrilling!

SCORES

Story - 3.5/5

Characters - 3.5/5

Production - 4.5/5

Acting - 5/5

Music - 4/5

TOTAL - 8.2/10