HARRY POTTER and the

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

3 Stars - Challenging

The fifth Harry Potter film is growing a little old along with the actors.  With the same characters, villains and spells, the battle between good and evil is once more waged in the magical world at Hogwarts’ School.  As was true in the other films, the power of love to beat the forces of darkness is still paramount, yet in this film, there is the nuanced explanation that “there are not so much good and bad people as good and bad within all of us, and we must choose which to express.”   This truth is a valuable lesson author J.K. Rowling repeatedly teaching Harry and the viewers of her films.

Directed for the first time by David Yates, the film has the usual beginning with Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) once more persecuted by his aunt and uncle and portly cousin, Dudley (Harry Melling).  But this time the struggle is interrupted by life-draining Azkaban prison guards called Dementors who attack them both.  When Harry uses a forbidden magic he is called before the authorities at the Ministry of Magic and threatened to be expelled.  This begins the usual interplay between the artificial struggles of Harry as a high school student and Harry as the grand wizard around whom the fate of the world revolves.

This larger struggle continues to be with the dark lord Valdemort (Ralph Fiennes), whose reincarnated body sports a reptilian nose.  Why the dark lord would be concerned with a high school student is part of the magic and the fantasy of the tale.  Because of the love of Harry’s parents, Valdemort has been unable to kill him.  But when he tried, their lives, minds and destinies became inseparately intertwined.

Assisting Harry in the struggle are not only his two closest friends Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) and Ron Weasely (Rupert Grint) but also an expanding circle of friends who are becoming a loyal army of accomplished wizards.  As is expected, the faculty at Hogwarts’ is involved as well, but with their usual idiosyncrasies and unexpected twists to the tale.

A new villain appears who is more a play on irritating institutional bureaucrats, here as a school principal, than the dark world of wizardry.  She is the ever smiling Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), whose pink attire camouflages her cruel soul.  Loving power and hating children, Umbridge begins a legalistic crusade to control the school and inadvertently, perhaps, keeps the students from learning the art of defending themselves against the dark lord.

We won’t spoil the intrigue of how all this plays out, but it is clear there will be more Harry Potter films to come as the battle continues regardless of the deaths experienced along the way.  It is this awareness that though the plot is set in a school, the struggles are far larger than its cloistered halls, and the lessons are deadly and real.  This is a reminder to all of us that evil penetrates both classroom and battlefield and we all have the power to choose good over evil in both.

 

Discussion:                                   

1.       In the final struggle when Harry is caught in a mind-meld with Valdemort it is love that gives Harry power.  How has love in your life helped you stand up to evil?

 

2.       The love of power exemplified by the legalistic Umbridge is very different from the wise administration of the school by Albus Dumbledore (Michael Gambon).  As you consider the schools you attended, which of these two types most describes your principals?

 

3.       The attempt of evil to isolate us from one another so that we can be weakened and destroyed is true to real life.  How have you been tempted to isolate yourself from those whose love and support you truly needed?  How did you resist or overcome this temptation?

 

4.       The ability to see more once you have faced death is portrayed within the film.  Have you faced death and had your eyes opened?  If so, what do you see more clearly now?

 

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Cinema In Focus is a social and spiritual movie commentary.  Hal Conklin is former mayor of Santa Barbara and Denny Wayman is pastor of the Free Methodist Church. For more reviews: http://www.cinemainfocus.com.