Who knew that Harry Potter could help me realize just how great my husband is?

Over the summer, my stepdaughter started reading the series, and my husband wanted to read along with her.  Now, Dan is a man with great focus; when he does something, he commits to it completely.  He’ll stay at his office until 10:00 at night to make sure he finishes networking his computers properly.  He never forgets to clean and refill the bird feeders.  He always rinses out the little filter for the Dustbuster.  He’s that kind of guy.  So, when he started reading the series, he went all in.  He read one book right after the other and finished the series in about six weeks.

While reading, he also watched all the films.  When he got to the film version of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, he was enthralled.  Dan confidently declared that the film was way better than the book. He urged me to finish the book so that I could watch the film.  Now, I had just started this book blog and didn’t want it to be all Harry all the time, so I kind of ignored him and slowly read one book a month.

The poor guy has been waiting three months to share the movie with me. Over the weekend, he finally got to show it off to me.

You know what? He’s right. . .the movie version IS way better than the book. There’s no clunky exposition during the climatic scene, and the director gives us just the right amount of visual cues to figure out who the bad guy really is.  I even got all teary at the end.

In their third year at Hogwarts, Harry and the gang must watch out for the murderous Sirius Black.  Black has escaped from the wizard prison, Azkaban, and everyone assumes he’s out to get Harry.  To protect him, Dumbledore stations the vile Dementors at the gates of Hogwarts. Harry has to learn how to resist the Dementors, but, more importantly, he has to learn who really betrayed his parents.  In the book, all of this comes out in the final scene beneath the Whomping Willow.  In the scene, Ron has a broken leg and must just sit there as everyone explains who’s who and who betrayed Harry and why.  Having just watched my thirteen-year old stepdaughter suffer through a torn ACL and surgery, I can guarantee that no teenager is going to quietly suffer a broken leg while we learn who did what to whom back in the day at Hogwarts. The film version gives us the clues earlier so that the Whomping Willow scene is much tighter.

This is just one example; I could go on and on, but I’d urge you to see the movie if you haven’t.  I know!  It’s a rare occasion where the film really is better.  Can you think of a film you enjoyed more than a book?

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