Some Harry Potter movie scenes are immediately incredible. The first Quidditch match in The Philosopher’s Stone, Dobby becoming a free elf in The Chamber of Secrets, Harry casting his Patronus on the lake in The Prisoner of Azkaban, and Albus Dumbledore vs. Lord Voldemort in The Order of the Phoenix are but a few examples of this. Others, however, take some time. That’s in part the point: like the books, these are movies that people grow up with, change with, and revisit across the years, from childhood to different stages of adulthood, so certain moments are going to hit different at various points.
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The biggest example of this, for me, comes from what’s actually (and incorrectly) the lowest-rated Harry Potter movie on Rotten Tomatoes: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, which, as a whole, is an installment that’s only grown on me over time (and I now think it’s underrated). Harry’s dance with Hermione in this movie is a scene that I didn’t like when I watched it in theaters back in 2010. Following Ron’s dramatic departure from the Horcrux hunt, as the pair showed off their moves in a tent to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ “O Children,” I cringed. It looked awkward, it felt awkward, and, outrageously, it wasn’t even in the novel (something that aggravated me as an insufferable book purist).
In the years since, having grown up at least a little bit (maybe), while it still divides fans, it’s a scene that’s become one of my very favorites in the entire franchise. I love Harry and Hermione’s friendship, and there actually aren’t that many scenes where it’s just the two of them, so allowing for a sweet bonding sequence between the pair is really great to have (there’s another in The Half-Blood Prince, where she cries on Harry after seeing Ron with Lavender Brown, that this feels like a neat follow-up to). It’s a rare tender moment, one that allows them to be free and childlike at their lowest, darkest point, showcasing the resiliency of youth and the power of friendship, yet also displays a level of emotional maturity the series hadn’t really reached before then.
Harry and Hermione were forced to grow up too fast, and this is a beautiful moment that feels like hitting pause, finding room for an intimate break from the epic war that’s being waged. That backdrop, of course, as well as Ron’s departure, makes it bittersweet, but that only adds to the emotion of the scene. It’s crucial that, in a search to find pieces of a soul to destroy a monstrous dark wizard, we get these glimpses of humanity, which is something I didn’t understand or appreciate anywhere near enough at the time, but love more and more with every rewatch.
The same largely goes for Part 1 of The Deathly Hallows. At first, I felt a lot of the criticisms were warranted: nothing happens, it’s boring, it’s all filler, did they really need to split it into two parts? God, I was wrong. There’s nothing filler about this movie: I’d go as far to say it has the best character work across all eight Harry Potter movies, and Part 2 works well because of the foundations laid here. It’s an important installment that allows everything to breathe, and it’s so much more impactful because of that, and no scene better highlights it than the dance.
The Harry Potter movies are available to stream on HBO Max.
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