This is
another film that was largely faithful to the book. Like The Sorcerer’s Stone, it covers all the major events of the book and brings the
characters to life wonderfully, but the overall feel of it is missing some of
the spark from the book, and various little edits result in the story not
feeling quite as tight (spoilers.)
Nearly
every important book scene (and plenty of the non-essential but memorable ones)
is present here, mostly as it happened.
There’s a little condensing, and some things happen a bit differently to
get more to the point – for instance, the first attack is moved up to right
after Harry first hears the basilisk’s voice, with everything about Nearly
Headless Nick’s deathday party getting cut out.
But all the big set pieces are there, all the major themes, and a lot of
the humorous bits.
For me,
the highlights include the Flourish & Blotts scene (both Gilderoy
Lockhart’s goofy introduction and the quiet, chilly menace of Lucius Malfoy –
Kenneth Branagh and Jason Isaacs were inspired choices for the characters) and
Harry’s confrontation in the Chamber with Tom Riddle. Again, the villainous exposition, on the
whole, is handled in a cinematically-friendly way; Christian Coulson nails the
characterization, and mixing in flashes of Ginny under his control breaks up a
dialogue-heavy scene.
My
biggest issues with the adaptation are several series of little things that add
up. While the book continually throws in
little mentions of Ginny, keeping her present in a pretty unobtrusive way,
she’s virtually a non-entity in the movie until she’s revealed as under
Riddle’s control. Similarly, the movie
doesn’t include those passing notes about various characters’ blood status, and
as a result, it talks about the
prejudice behind the Chamber of Secrets without doing much to demonstrate it.
Also, two
books in, I’m really noticing how the movies don’t do as much as they could
with Ron growing up in a magical family while Harry and Hermione are raised by
Muggles. Sure, he’s Harry’s introduction
to wizarding world candy and whatnot in The
Sorcerer’s Stone, but the movies I’ve compared so far have wasted
opportunites to show that Ron knows this world better than his friends do, like
explaining the slur “Mudblood.” (That
said, I do like that the movie shows
Hermione already knowing the term and feeling hurt by it – given the prejudice
in the community, it seems unlikely she wouldn’t have encountered it at all
during her first year.) The movies have
also eliminated little details on the flipside, like Harry teaching Ron about
telephone numbers. These are good
moments in the books that reflect the kids’ varied experiences, and leaving
them out of the films make the movies feel just a bit flatter.
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