Posted: 11/18/2001

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

(2001)

by Parama Chaudhury

As good as the book? What makes it fun to watch if it’s the same as the book?

Of course it’s pretty hard to write a review of the film version of a bestseller, but the circumstances ended up making it harder. I watched it sitting in the third row from the front, a little left of center, I was in a bad mood and not willing to put up with mediocre magic, and the kid next to me kept saying, “I know what happens now…” And yet, I would still say that Chris Columbus’s as-close-to-the-written-word version conjured up enough magic to make it worth braving the hype to go see it.

I have to admit that I have a pointy black hat, have been sorted into Gryffindor at the Warner Brothers website, and am a proud owner of two of Harry’s textbooks. So before I saw the movie, I asked myself what exactly I was looking for. The problem with reading a well-written book with a vivid imagination in tow, is that you’ve already pictured everything, and anyone else’s visualization will always fall short. I know what Hogwarts looks like. I’ve seen how big Hagrid is. I even know Professor Snape’s slimy look. Well, I told myself, what I want in this movie is a recreation of that feeling that came over me as I turned the last page of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone: I need more!

When the movie opened with Albus Dumbledore, brilliant wizard and venerated principal of Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, materializing on the doorstep of Harry’s non-magic family, I was still a little skeptical. Richard Griffiths’s buffoon of an Uncle Vernon added to this sinking feeling. But Hagrid’s (Robbie Coltrane) appearance dispelled most of my doubts. He is at once a little off-balance, mostly trustworthy, and slightly frightening. The only other performance that really stands out is Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, of whom Harry is eternally suspicious. Rickman grabs your attention as soon as he enters the room, and not just as a bad guy. You are curious about him. And that keeps you with him, long after you would have lost interest in a regular villain. The children do a fair job, but Harry doesn’t seem sufficiently dazed by his astonishing new circumstances.

And what about the magic? Except for the Quidditch match, things are pretty compelling. Fluffy, the menacing three-headed dog is suitably dangerous (and gross), levitation looks like fun, and I love how that mouthwatering food—or at least what the English believe is mouthwatering food—suddenly appears (remember Satyajit’s Ray’s Goopy Gayen Bagha Bayen?). Unfortunately, the Quidditch match is just so fast, and the field below looks so computer-generated that it’s hard to feel excited. It’s over before you can even figure out what’s going on. There are lots of new concepts in Harry’s magical world, and if you’re not given enough time, you become alienated.

This is a trap J.K. Rowling masterfully avoided in the books, and into which Columbus falls headlong. In the final analysis, it is not about the cool graphics or how much Harry and Ron look like the illustrations in the book. It’s also not about how close the movie is to the letter of the book. Columbus comes close to capturing the spirit of Harry, but just falls short. I think I may have had enough of the Harry movies.

I still need more of the books, though. The wonderful thing about these books was that adults could get a kick out of them too. The movie is definitely for kids. It’s probably as entertaining as something like Toy Story, but it’s not the phenomenon the book was. Visualization adds little to the magic and in fact, may have reduced the aura around Harry, now that he’s on screen and not part of my own private imagination.

I didn’t regret going to this movie, but I won’t rush to buy tickets for the first show of the second movie. But still, if you know where I can get a scarlet and gold Gryffindor shirt, do let me know.

Parama Chaudhury is a graduate student, an ex-writing instructor and a budding freelance writer, based in New York City.

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