Film Review:
Growing
Up: Harry Potter’s Goblet Of Fire; Exciting Austen:
Pride & Prejudice
by Jan Aaron
t’s no more kids’ play at Hogwarts: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the fourth Potter
movie based on a J.K. Rowling’s novel is dark and daring
with a PG-13 rating. The
incipient teen age wizards, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), and
his pals, Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson),
now 14, are taller and more mature. That they face a year
unlike any other at the school is apparent from the arrival
of a flying horse-drawn carriage bearing the French female
students of Beauxbatons and the emergence of an ancient
sailing vessel carrying Middle European boys of Durmstrang.
As the wise
headmaster Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) explains this
experiment in international cooperation among wizarding schools
is meant to foster the old tradition of the Triwizard Tournament,
a trio of intimidating tasks to be undertaken by an exemplary
representative from each institution. The selection of Harry,
as one to the participants, creates concern—he’s
underage and ill-prepared. His first task is a dazzling sequence
depicting a fight with airborne dragons, gladiator style. In
his second task, he participates
in a scary underwater rescue. Third task is mastering a maze
and facing a showdown with the evil Voldemort (Ralph
Fiennes).
Expertly directed
by Mike Newell, the movie balances both dark and light like
another challenge facing Harry and his friends: They must pair
up for a Christmas ball. Harry may be up to dragons in the
sky, but he is goes all weak at the knees when he has to ask
a girl to a dance. The party also causes a rift in friendships,
mended later in the movie. A new character Rita Skeeter, (Miranda
Richardson), a gossip columnist with a poison pen, adds humorous
bits.
We
are left with a message that we are faced with the choice
of doing right or doing what’s easy. The new movie
chooses to make it right but acknowledges that Potter and
friends now face a different world. (2:37)
Another literary
adaptation, Pride and Prejudice, stars 20-year- old British
beauty Keira Knightly as Elizabeth, tart, smart daughter of
five in the Bennett family of modest means. In
Austen’s era, Elizabeth’s spunk could ruin her
chances of marriage and financial upward mobility. Matthew MacFayden plays the desirable,
but aloof Darcy, the source of Elizabeth’s slings and
arrows. Filmed at some of the greatest estates of Great Britain,
this P&P is a treat for the eyes, as
well as feast for classroom discussion. (PG-2:07)#
