Harry Potter and the Cursed Child review (attempted to not give any spoilers, but read at your own risk)

I just finished devouring HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD and am in a happy, happy, Harry Potter place right now. J The book (play, really, but a book for the 99.99% of us who will never be able to afford or obtain tickets) reads like Steven Moffat and Dr. Phil teamed up to write the best Harry Potter fan fic ever, after having watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” together. I have worked hard to keep all but the most general spoilers out of my review, but if you really prefer an entirely unadulterated read, wait until you’re done and then come back – my review won’t run away, I promise.

Probably on account of Rowling’s collaboration with two co-authors, HP & THE CURSED CHILD is neither as whimsical nor as dark as the novels; it doesn't have time to be. Instead, it accomplishes an admirable synthesis that gives you just enough of a taste of both moods. The authors knew they were writing in a truncated form, “Harry Potter Lite,” so they threw in just enough bits and pieces to make a fast moving yet still meaningful story – it feels a little too quick at times, but does its job pretty darned well nonetheless. 

I admit it felt somewhat weird to read CURSED CHILD after having seen the popular fan film, “Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03b-XWibZJ8), a raunchier yet earnest and maybe even deeper look at our three heroes as late twentysomethings. There are some eerie similarities between some of the events that happen in the film, and some that happen in CURSED CHILD…one could almost fool oneself into thinking “The Ten Years Later” was canon, and now CURSED CHILD puts another ten years, and some children, on top.

The children are the point, as the title may imply. HP & THE CURSED CHILD is, at root, a story about the generation gap -- or rather, three distinct generations trying to understand one another, prove themselves to one another, rebel and define themselves in opposition to one another. The other work of fiction it reminded me most of was, weirdly, STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS. There too, both heroes and villains alike are obsessed with living up to and/or differentiating themselves from their parents, a struggle which seemed far more important than whether or not the Newfangled Death Star ™ got blown up. Similarly, CURSED CHILD has the children of Harry & Ginny, Ron & Hermione, Draco, and…others…on display, in epically emo (occasionally mildly homoerotic) displays of identity angst. Most get their due treatment, with the notable exception of Ron & Hermione’s daughter Rose. She had a lot of unrealized potential and too often felt like a stock character. But then, so did Ron and Hermione . I get it, with an ensemble cast of protagonists (both parents and children get a lot of airtime), there is only so deep you can go with everyone. Still, the strength of “Harry Potter and the Ten Years Later” was how all three of the trio got serious and detailed treatment, and Ginny somewhat as well (she is one of the stockest of the stock characters in CURSED CHILD, although towards the end we do get a couple of glimmers).

On the other hand, CURSED CHILD one-betters THE FORCE AWAKENS by showing head-on, early and often, what a burden and a torture it can be to have famous parents. THE FORCE AWAKENS missed a great opportunity by keeping Leia and Han in the role of plucky rebels (in terms of their function in the film, backstory about the New Republic be damned).  If we saw a detailed picture of Darth Emo (Ben/Kylo Ren) trying to be his own person in the shadow of the Big Damned Heroes of the Universe, we could perhaps better understand his turn to the dark side. Which is, without spoiling too much, very much at issue in CURSED CHILD, as well.

One odd thing about reading a “book” in dialogue form is that you really have to imagine it as a play in your mind, especially to appreciate some of the comic timing. Having a dose of humor (especially) at even the darkest moments has been a hallmark of drama since Shakespeare (we get the gravediggers in Hamlet, the porter in MacBeth, Mercutio in Romeo & Juliet)…I was impressed how the jokes never really spoiled the serious tone. Someone knew how to pace and space tone and mood.

That said, there is a LOT of fan service in the book– characters who walk on stage just to, you imagine, get applause for showing up, then leave after doing something minor. It’s forgivable.  The biggest fan service of all may be that the play takes what seems like every possible instance of characters from the series who wanted to say something to other characters but didn’t, and gives them that chance (even the dead ones…I won’t give away how). On the one hand, trying to resolve all of this stuff seems like beating a dead horse (were the emotional loose ends really so bad a thing? We could extrapolate on our own), but on the other hand, there is guilty pleasure in watching it happen.  We like our melodies to resolve, not be left hanging.

The plot rewards an obsessive knowledge of Harry Potter continuity (I felt grateful that I’ve been reacquainting myself with the books as I read them to my daughter – I would have been lost at times without doing so). This is not the JJ Abrams, “let’s make the work accessible to a new generation while leaving in some fun bits for the initiated” – this is a straight pitch to the superfans. I have no idea how anyone who hasn’t read the books will be able to follow a single bit of the story, but then, there aren’t that many people who haven’t read the books, right?

The plot, for all of its Steven Moffat style convolusion in the actual events, is not all that sophisticated. I called the main plot twist very early on (at least, most of it), but the suspense is still there and the stakes feel real. Even if you the reader can call it, the characters, believably, can’t, and their tension becomes your tension.

Which of the characters – of any generation – is the “Cursed Child” is debatable. The title could actually apply to almost all of them, and maybe that is the point. Although it lays it on thick towards the end, part of what the book is hammering home is that to live, and especially to love, is a curse as well as a blessing -- and no one, noble wizard or evil death eater – is immune. You almost can see why Voldemort was so scared of love – it beats the tar out of all the characters in the play, and even the somewhat saccharine ending doesn’t erase that message. You get the sense that you’re just in a calm before the next storm. It’s a heavier and somewhat more mature message  than the “love is our secret weapon” banner of the earlier books, and in a way that makes it more satisfying for those of us who grew up on Harry Potter…and are now old enough to appreciate that fuller, at times darker message.

Even though it leaves plenty of room for sequels (Harry Potter IX: The Quest for More Money!), I really felt this to be a nice capstone on the series, far better than the slapped-on epilogue of Deathly Hallows (the play, not accidentally, basically starts with a mild re-work of that epilogue scene). That we’ve come to the End of the Story, and that the story continues, is no paradox. That’s both life’s curse, and its blessing.