Parenting Teens

Well, the Pottermania for this summer has officially begun! “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” has been released. The race for who can see it first is already over, and now the race is on to as to who will see it the most times! And with the final book, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows coming out soon, there’s even more mania to follow. The Baltimore Sun has reactions from some fans who saw midnight showings last night.

Which brings me to the rest of my post for today. As usually happens with our favorite movies, my 16-year-old daughter and I were out to see a midnight showing. This was following a sprained or broken ankle scare yesterday morning (it turned out to be only a strain, thank goodness, but spending half the day in the emergency room was my reason for not posting yesterday). We went with in a small group with two of our friends.

It was, essentially, like a family reunion! Not that we knew all of the people there. But we all had a love of Harry in common, and getting together was great! In keeping with the theme of the evening, I dressed as Professor McGonagall and the three girls dressed as Hogwart’s students. The costumes were interesting. I even saw a couple of people who were wearing torn, black flowing robes and looking like Dementors. One extremely tall guy was wearing a wig and long beard and looking like Hagrid.

We arrived at 11:00pm, although we had already bought tickets earlier. But there were door prizes, a costume contest(we didn’t win, darn it!) and trivia. It was a fun and quick hour, waiting for the movie to begin.

Now, for the movie itself. This is no critic’s evaluation. I’m a huge Potter fan, and would have liked it, regardless. This is just my take. It was the shortest Potter film to date, at two hours, 18 minutes. It seemed to go much faster than that.

My favorite part of it all was that all the familiar characters were back-Mad-Eye Moody, Remus Lupin, Lucius Malfoy. My least favorite part was that the movie is so jam-packed with familiar characters that it left very little room to introduce new ones. We saw extremely little of Tonks and Bellatrix Lestrange (a great turn by Helena Bonham Carter), who figured prominently in the book.

As usual, the veteran actors of the cast were superb. Gary Oldman as Sirius Black fits the role to a T. Alan Rickman did his usual outstanding job as Severus Snape, as did David Thewlis and Ralph Fiennes, as Remus Lupin and Voldemort. From the beginning, the casting of the professors and other older roles has been wonderful.

As for the younger actors-Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson, I like them more with every movie. Some people feel that they are outgrowing their roles. I, on the other hand, feel that they have grown into them. They have a great cohesiveness, which improves with every Potter film.

Overall, I felt the film was really good. The tone was much darker, true, but then each successive book has dealt with darker themes, so this is to be expected. When you think about it, kids deal with darker issues the older they become, so the films mirror life in that respect.

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is a great activity to share with your kids-teen, ‘tweens, almost any age. If you like it too, so much the better. If you don’t, go anyway and indulge your kids a bit. They’ll appreciate it, and you might find yourself having a good time, if you can suspend your disbelief for a couple of hours and accept the magic.

Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Helena Bonham Carter, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, David Thewlis, Ralph Fiennes