Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) directed by Chris Columbus
Once upon a time, there was an Ugly Muggle named Harry. The Muggle family he lived with neglected, bullied and abused him because he was so bad at being a Muggle. But then one day a friendly giant appeared, and revealed to Harry that he was not in fact an Ugly Muggle, but a Magnificent Wizard, far superior to the mere mortals around him. And now he could go to Wizard school to be with his own kind!
Okay, I’m being a bit sarcastic. This was the first in a series of movies based on a then-popular set of children’s/young adult books. The infant Harry Potter is dropped off at the home of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, who hate magic but are his only living blood relatives by Professors Albus Dumbledore (Richard Harris) and McGonagall (Maggie Smith) after he’s dropped off by half-giant Rubeus Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane).
A bit over a decade later, Vernon (Richard Griffiths) and Petunia (Fiona Shaw) keep young Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) in a closet under the stairs, and treat him miserably, favoring his spoiled cousin and their biological son Dudley (Harry Melling). They’re upset any time something weird happens, especially if they can somehow blame it on Harry. Since the Dursleys have spent a lot of time and effort on convincing Harry he’s worthless and not at all special, it’s unnerving when he starts getting letters, which Vernon destroys until they pile up uncontrollably and the man takes the family to an isolated island.
This doesn’t work. Hagrid tracks them down and informs Harry of his true heritage and that he’s been invited to Hogwarts, a school for wizards and witches. He then takes Harry on a whirlwind trip to gather the needed supplies (and a plot coupon) before leaving Harry at a train station for the Hogwarts Express.
On the train, Harry meets the poverty-stricken but friendly Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and bookish but bossy Hermione Granger (Emma Watson), who will soon be his classmates. About this time he also meets Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton), a snobbish boy who turns bully when Harry refuses his initial offer of Friendship.
At the school, Harry soon learns about Dumbledore, McGonagall, Quirrel (Ian Hart) the stuttering Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Flitwick (Warwick Davis) the diminutive Charms teacher, Madame Hooch (Zoe Wanamaker) the Flight instructor,,, and the sinister-looking and increasingly hostile to Harry Potions teacher, Severus Snape (Alan Rickman).
It turns out that Harry is good at flying a broom and he becomes the star of the Quidditch sports team for his House. Quite a change from his previous life!
Over the course of the year, Harry and his new friends come to realize that something is going on behind the scenes at Hogwarts, perhaps to do with the return of the evil wizard Voldemort (Richard Bremmer). Near the end of the school year, it’s up to them to learn the truth and defeat the baddie. But what if they’ve guessed wrong?
This is a difficult movie to approach in some ways. As the majority of my readers will know, the author of the Harry Potter series has since joined the sadly long list of authors of beloved children’s books that were less than stellar in their personal lives. As I was already an adult when the books started coming out, while I was a fan and enjoyed the community, it wasn’t the most important thing in my life. Not like a lot of younger fans for whom the change in personality made it painful to even think about something that had been a huge part of their childhood.
Most of the problematic people I’ve been a fan of had the decency to become dead before I became a fan, or at least before I found out about their odious personal habits. This one, alas, is still alive and very public about their awful views, and very much still raking in the dough each time someone buys a Harry Potter-related item.
But I know that back in 2001, we weren’t aware of that author’s darker side except perhaps as odd moments in the books that now look like red flags in hindsight. These were fun books that weren’t quite as original as the publicity claimed, but did a lot to restart the young adult book market.
And as for this movie, a lot of other people worked on it who haven’t been revealed as particularly horrible, at least by Hollywood standards. It’s got a top-notch adult cast, decent child actors in the important roles, wondrous special effects, and some decent directing to try to fit in as many of the plot beats of the book as can be crammed in within two and a half hours. It’s a very good-looking movie and also has memorable music.
There’s some characterization quibbles I could make, and the Voldemort reveal was going to look silly no matter how good a special effects team you had, but overall it’s a fun movie to watch.
Content note: Child abuse, peril to children with some of them needing time in hospital afterwards, an animal corpse, a gruesome death scene. Bullying. Oh, and Nearly Headless Nick (John Cleese in a cameo) shows us why he’s called that.
If you already have a copy of this movie and won’t be too pained by the associated memories, it is definitely worth a rewatch. Likewise, if you can acquire it legally without the money going to the book author. Otherwise, you might want to consider other magic school stories with less fraught associations. Maybe something by Diane Duane, Tamora Pierce or Ursula K. LeGuin? Heck, maybe The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Become Magicians might suit, despite my reservations about that series.
