Captivatingly brilliant hit
Unexpected blockbuster film
A FILM about a magical zookeeper has turned out to be the most unexpectedly relevant blockbuster of the year.
Back in September 2013, when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was unveiled, everything about this first chunk of Warner Bros’ latest mega-budget franchise seemed factory-mulched, vacuum-packed and reheated to order with a merry microwave ping.
It was an extension of the studio’s lucrative and recently concluded Harry Potter franchise – based on a series of books by JK Rowling which were themselves, you may recall, no commercial slouch.
It would be directed by David Yates, the steady hand who’d steered Harry Potter films five to eight to popular and critical acclaim.
It would star Eddie Redmayne – a handsome, dapper Oscar-winner.
It would be written by Rowling herself, in her screenwriting debut. And it would take place in New York City of the 1920s: a buzzy setting, popping with storytelling potential.
Well. Fantastic Beasts may take place in the build-up to the Great Depression, but its vision of an America caught in the jaws of fear and paranoia has the stony-grim ring of the here and now.
Hogsmeade, US this ain’t – the city is cold, dark and seething with suspicion, with pamphleteers pressing for a “Second Salem” – as in witch trials – to keep the country’s clandestine magic-using element in check. Mixing cultures is frowned upon, intermarriage the strictest of no-nos.
There’s even a straw-haired, smirking son of privilege, Henry Shaw, running for congress with the campaign slogan “America’s Future”. His father, played by Jon Voight, is a Charles Foster Kane-like newspaper baron.
But through the urban chill blows a long breath of warm air, and Newt Scamander (Redmayne) is his name.
Newt is a magizoologist who arrives in town via Ellis Island – from where Manhattan’s skyscrapers, rosy in the morning light, really do look magical – with a Tardis-like leather briefcase full of fabulous creatures under his arm.
With the latch switched to “muggle-worthy”, he’s waved through customs, though a mishap at a bank means his case gets switched with one belonging to Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a “No-Maj” (American for muggle) who mistakenly allows the beasts to escape into the city.
Though Fantastic Beasts is genealogically linked to Harry Potter, with nods and winks sprinkled like cake crumbs throughout the script, in practice there’s no particular reason it had to be.
Exhibit A is Redmayne, whose Newt doesn’t feel like any other personality in Potteriana – from his bashfulness to his stammer and gloriously impractical fringe, he’s a sore thumb in a cobalt greatcoat, and his company’s addictive.
Exhibits B through Z are the beasts themselves, which aren’t the expected Tolkeinesque menagerie. They’re more like emigres from a video game, gently psychedelic and radiantly realised.
Newt and Jacob must track down this lot as surreptitiously as possible – which isn’t very – with help from Porpentina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a former Auror/magical FBI type, and her breathy bombshell of a sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), whose ability to read minds goes hand-in-hand with a Mae West-like knack for addling them.
“Don’t worry, honey,” she says to a flustered Jacob by means of introduction. “Most guys think what you were thinking, first time they meet me.”
Unexpectedly, it’s moments like this that stay with you more sharply than the set-pieces. The film is immaculately cast, and the chemistry between its four heroes holds your eye with its firework fizz.
Fogler is a teddy bear in a tweed three-piece here, roving through this magical world in an adorable state of awestruck haplessness.
Waterston makes Tina’s thistly pragmatism grippingly heroic, while Sudol, a singer-songwriter with little previous screen experience, proves a natural at Jazz Age slink and pep.
The outstanding Coleen Atwood costumes are just one facet of a meticulously designed world into which you’ll be content to sink for films on end. Which is just as well – there are another four to come.
Colin Farrell is also huskily captivating as Percival Graves, the wizarding world’s chief of secret police – although having built him into something special, the film underestimates his worth and squanders the character at the last minute, a rare bum note that remains ringing in your ears for hours. The same goes for Johnny Depp, whose brief and now widely reported appearance as the dark wizard Gellert Grindelwald is staged as a celebrity “ta-daaa!” moment that would have cheapened the film at a stroke anyway.
“I don’t think I’m dreaming and I ain’t got the brains to make this up,” Jacob boggles when he realises the magical world he’s suddenly swamped by is for real. Fortunately for us, Rowling does. Keep it coming. – The Telegraph