SPOILER: Lucius and the Curse

[Wanda Sherratt]

--- In HPFGU-Movie at y..., Barbara Sheridan <bsher213 at y...> wrote:
> I thought Isaacs was a perfect Lucius especially with his
> "You are so beneath a Malfoy" look to Hermione in the
> bookshop and his "how DARE you embarrass the Malfoy name
> with anything less that perfection" look he gives the
> fallen Draco at the Quidditch match. (Also loved the way
> Rickman hauled Draco to his feet at the dueling scene. It
> was a "how DARE you embarrass Slytehrin House" moment that
> spoke volumes)


I loved both those touches, too, especially Snape pulling Draco up 
and then shoving him right back into the match.  Actually, I very 
much liked Snape in this movie, especially that duelling scene.  
Even though he didn't have a lot of lines, I thought his acting 
conveyed a lot.  In most of his scenes, he is very controlled and is 
looking at Harry and his friends with narrowed eyes (not really very 
attractive, in my view); when Harry speaks the Parseltongue, I saw 
his eyes get really big with shock.  Even the body language (people 
have commented on how his reaction seemed slow) conveyed how big an 
event this was, and you could see his brain processing all the 
implications.  In fact, I think that Snape's reaction is what gives 
power to the next scene, where Ron and Hermione explain to Harry 
what being a Parseltongue implies.  Without that, it would be yet 
another "explanation" scene.

As for Lucius, I DO think he was trying to kill Harry at the end.  I 
know it's not in the book, but movies do go for a kind of shorthand 
method of character development.  I think what we were getting here 
was "Seriously evil wizard coming through."  It looked to me like 
Lucius was beside himself with rage, and lost control enough to 
allow us a look at what he's really like.  And, by implication, what 
Voldemort is like, as Lucius is his agent.  Isaacs acting, by the 
way, was WONDERFUL.  He was so good, I realized after the movie that 
in that scene in Dumbledore's office, I'd totally forgotten that 
Dobby was CGI - I was genuinely convinced that Dobby was really 
there in that room with them all, and it was purely because Isaacs 
was so convincing as the tyrannical master abusing his pathetic 
little slave.