Harry Potter! (plot spoilers after the dashed line)

Yes, we actually made it to a Movie for Mommies. And it was glorious. Here’s how it happened.

I believe the system mentioned 657453 times that Goblet of Fire (henceforth GoF) was playing on Wednesday at 1 pm at Yonge & Eglinton. And that it would be so cool to go. But Carl had a meeting up at his work that day and so needed the car and it did not seem likely that we would be going. Until he showed up just in time for us to bundle Noah into his car seat and take off.

In the elevator we met several other mommies with babies and even a dad, and outside the theatre there were several other dads also, and parents of both genders blowing the afternoon off as Carl was, talking into their cell phones: “I’m just going into a meeting but I’ll call you back at 4….” This reminds me of how sexist the “Movies for Mommies” name is.

But with 5 change stations set up outside the theatre and a stroller parking area and a friendly attitude towards crying babies, how can I really be grumpy with the organizers? I felt the love. I was in love with the ushers, and in love with all the mommies and babies that filled - and I do mean relatively filled; there were at least 50 babies there - the theatre, all jonesing for Harry-Potter-with-option-to-breastfeed. I was just in love. I think it was the giddiness of getting to go to some arts-related event. Or it may just have been the Harry Potter Effect. But whatever it was, I was high the whole time and for some hours afterwards. Right until Carl left to get his dad from the train station, I’d say.

The sound was not as low as I would have liked, but it was lower than usual. When the lights went out Noah became fascinated and after a while I realized he hasn’t been in the utter dark much - we keep a nightlight on in our bedroom so I can watch him breathe any time, and we nurse with a small lamp on too. He would watch my face and breath faster when it was dark and then when the screen lit up my face he would suddenly beam at me, the way he does when I pick him up after a nap. I guess to him I was disappearing and appearing. He adjusted pretty fast - by the end of the previews. Of course there were a huge number of previews!

Getting mouth to tit in the dark was interesting too.

Noah was a trooper: he did fuss a little bit, mostly when dragons were screeching. For some reason, probably some mamalian backbrain that’s concerned about predators, most of the babies cried when the dragons were screeching. I also stood at the side and rocked him back and forth a bit after nursing, and he fell asleep. That plus one diaper change and that was all. He seemed to enjoy being held and to see some of the screen, although I kept turning him back towards me because it seems a bit brutal for a young baby, all that flashing and motion and lights.

We enjoyed the movie a lot. I do think this is probably the best adaptation although I liked the romantic flourishes of Alfonso Cuarón’s Azkaban quite a lot.

But this material was denser and there really was a right way to cut the book and a wrong way, and I think this nailed the right way since one had to do it. Mike Newell’s grey grey grey palette initially made me feel a bit grumpy but after about 20 minutes - and the flourishes of the camp and so on - it really did start to feel like, well, England. (Based on the whole 4 weeks total I have spent there at least, but one of those weeks was in March!) I think Newell understood what the story really was - the end of childhood - but managed not to beat everyone over the head with it.

But it was the actors who really floored me. There were almost no sour notes and Emma Watson in particular just, I thought, nailed it. I was amazed that I could even handle the overdone simpering on the part of the Beauxbatons witches because they somehow made it believable, at least after their initial entrance.

Plot spoiler ahead, although I do hope you’ve read it.

———————————————-

It was also a unique way to watch this particular HP film. I think Newell handled Cedric’s death, and Harry’s return to the stadium, and Cedric’s father’s reaction, brilliantly and in an emotionally true way. And coming from me that says quite a lot. It would have been moving badly done; well done it was very moving; but what made it a completely overwhelming moment was to be watching it with an audience of almost all new parents. The shock and fear and darkness of it seemed to spill out from the screen and make everyone hold their babies a little closer.

I am really glad to have had that experience.

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