Harry Potter is coming of age. I don't just mean the character, I mean the film series as well. I'm glad that the swearing has been toned down since the last film. It's restricted to one exclamation from Ron's lips.
Harry is now 15 and in the 5th form (commonly called Year 10 to align it with the school systems in other European countries). He has his first kiss with Cho. Ah, that brings back memories. I had my first kiss when I was in the 5th form as well, though I was already 16 at the time. It was a clumsy kiss with Mandy Stickland, a friend of my sister's, outside her house in Aldridge after I walked her home. It was nowhere near as romantic as Harry's first kiss. My second kiss, a few days later, was better. Not as hurried, and more passionate. And yet it's the first kiss that I'll always remember. In fact, even though my relationship with Mandy lasted three months it's that one kiss that I remember more clearly than anything else.
Non-Americans probably don't realise that Dolores Umbridge is based on Mary Whitehouse, the bigoted anti-immorality and anti-progress campaigner of the 1970's and 1980's. History will remember her as a person who did evil in the name of good. If she were alive today she would be campaigning to ban the Internet because of its adverse effect on morals. When I was young she scared me; I thought that she would harm the society I was growing up in. Fortunately my fears were unfounded. She faded into obscurity after an injury in 1988 and died in 2001, having failed to bring about changes in any of the issues that meant so much to her.
This is the darkest of the Harry Potter films so far, and contains hints for the following stories. I'm glad that I'm watching them at last. But I'm still not tempted to read the books.
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