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DECEMBER 2005

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)#

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