Rooftop Yawp

As a rule, I’m not a big fan of movie adaptations of books. A director’s vision too often clashes with my own. The casting director’s, too; how often have I scrunched up my face when the absolutely wrong actor tries to inhabit a space I’ve already created for a character in my imagination?

(Tom Hanks as Sherman in “The Bonfire of the Vanities” comes to mind. I mean, I love me some Hanks, but as a “master of the universe”? Come on.)

And then there’s all that’s left behind after the screenwriter does his or her job. Plot points abandoned. Pearls of gorgeous description pulverized. Sections of clever dialogue dashed.

Mostly, it all hurts too much, and I just stay home.

But there are exceptions to every rule. The films, for example, that I actually preferred to their written forebears. It has happened once or twice. I could never get through even the first chapter of Robert James Waller’s “The Bridges of Madison County,” for instance, even after several attempts. But I adored the film with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood, whose fling made my heart truly ache.

And there have been a handful of movies adapted from beloved books that I actually enjoyed. Such as the film version of “The Hours,” again with Ms. Streep. I thought it served as a lovely addendum to Michael Cunningham’s spellbinding novel, which braided together stories about writer Virginia Woolf, a 1950s housewife inspired by Woolf’s “Mrs. Dalloway,” and a modern-day incarnation of the fictional character — all played deftly onscreen by Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore and Streep, respectively.

And then, of course, the Harry Potter movies. I’ve loved them all, starting with the “The Sorcerer’s Stone,” which I actually had to attend with a gaggle of child readers in tow — so I could interview them immediately afterward for a newspaper story. (A circumstance which, thankfully, did not have to be repeated with movies 2 through 5.)

We own every DVD that’s come out and we watched them all in recent weeks, to gear up for the release of the sixth movie, “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” I fell in love with all of them, all over again.

Then last night we saw “Half-Blood Prince.” And I’m sad to report I slumped out of the theater with a heavy heart. My disappointment was palpable, my quibbles were several.

Sigh.

As Cab pointed out, I probably created some of my own disenchantment, by recently re-reading the book. The details were too fresh in my memory, and their absence too noticeable in the film.

[[Film spoilers below]]

Now, I realize a 652-page book cannot be faithfully recreated in a 2 1/2-hour movie. Narrative strands must be set aside. Some scenes cannot survive the jump from page to screen. I understand all that.

But what makes “The Half-Blood Prince” such a powerful read is the way in which it pulls the rug out from under us, as readers. It wrenches away our security blankets. We shudder (at least I did) as evil seeps slams into the Muggle world. Murders, bridge collapses, disappearances. And a pervasive, ominous mist hangs in the air. The book even opens with the Minister of Magic paying a disturbing visit to the Muggle prime minister, to warn him of trouble afoot. 

Even the stone ramparts of Hogwarts are less than impenetrable. The Ministry augments the school’s physical and magical defenses with Aurors who regularly patrol its grounds. And the seemingly invincible Dumbledore grows outwardly less so, as his mysteriously blackened hand worsens during the course of the book.

The unrest, the uncertainty, the vulnerability — it all combines to leave readers disarmingly off-balance. Helpless, if you will. Which is just right. How else would someone feel in the face of gathering evil?

But I think all of that was glossed over in the film — the incursion of dark magic into the Muggle realm, the portentous presence of Aurors at Hogwarts, the progression of Dumbledore’s hand injury and, finally, the transformation of Hogwarts teachers from kindly protectors into fierce combatants in a climactic battle scene on the school grounds.

By cutting crucial scenes — and altering others beyond recognition — the movie missed several opporunities to recreate that sense of insurmountable dread.

For example, whither the Gaunts?

By allowing Dumbledore and Harry to explore Voldemort’s loveless origins, via Pensieve visits to the home of his despicable, racist grandfather, Marvolo Gaunt, Rowling not only showed the potent current of hate coursing through the villain’s veins. She also humanized the Dark Lord, by revealing his cold genesis.

But the movie showed none of the pair’s visits to the filthy Gaunt home. Pity.

And the climax of Hogwarts teachers (and members of the student organization Dumbledore’s Army) doing battle with Death Eaters at the school, while Draco Malfoy and Dumbledore have their confrontation at the top of the Astronomy Tower? Never happens.

I was looking forward to the epic battle for the entire movie. Can’t quite figure out why it was scrubbed. Too expensive? Too much CGI required?

(And I’ll go out on a limb and say it really bothered me that Harry was not immobilized by the Petrificus Totalus curse beneath his Invisibility Cloak when the biggest spoiler of all occurs. Friends who watched the film with me weren’t as troubled by this alteration, but I think Harry’s inability to move was an essential piece of the overall theme of helplessness. Just saying.)

Well, this mini-review has gone on waaaay too long. Let me wrap it up by saying I didn’t hate the film, but I mourn the missed opportunities. The decisions made among the trees that changed the face of the entire forest.

And so now I will grieve in the only way I know how. I’ll keep reading “Deathly Hallows,” and hope for redemption when movie No. 7 hits theaters next year.