"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" Script Review

A Review of the 8th "Harry Potter" Script

When J.K. Rowling announced the worldwide release of the eighth story in her magic saga, fans were electrified. There had not been a Harry Potter story for nine years, and since the ending was left fairly closed in Deathly Hallows, people started to wonder what could possibly be the next step in the story of "the boy who lived."

However, there was a twist: this new adventure was a stage play, meaning that the printed release of the narrative would be the script. I think that went over many people's heads—not because they weren't aware of it, but because they didn't realise that writing and reading a script is not the same as simply taking the descriptions out of a novel and adding stage directions between the dialogue.

So they assumed it would read and feel like any other Harry Potter story, and what they got took them by surprise. But its script format isn't the only reason I think critical fans didn't like it; this story disappoints on many points that have nothing to do with its form. Still, I think that whatever problems the story had might have been magnified by the fact that anyone that did not see the play only had dialogue and stage directions to go by, myself included.

Because I haven't seen the play, my analysis will be strictly of the story, pacing and characters in the script. And, as I said before, I'll take this story for the way it's written; that is, I'll remember that it's a script and not a novelisation, which will be important when I talk about the book's pacing.

Haven't Read It Yet?

Keep in mind this review will contain full-on spoilers for the entire story. If you have not read the book until now, this is your warning. It takes one to two days to get through, so give The Cursed Child a quick read and then come back.

The Story of "The Cursed Child"

Starting with the story, a brief synopsis will tell you that the story revolves around Albus Potter and Scorpius Malfoy as they go through their years at Hogwarts as best friends, and the struggles in their relations with themselves, the students around them, and more importantly, their respective fathers.

The main conflict of the story comes when Albus decides to right what he perceives as one of his father's greatest mistakes: the death of Cedric Diggory, and thus convinces Scorpius to use with him a prototype Time Turner, along with a new character, Cedric's cousin Delphini, to go back in time and save Cedric. As they do so, complications arise, and they end up stranded in several bizarre alternate timelines.

Ultimately, Delphini is revealed to be Voldemort's daughter, whose plan is to create a new universe in which Voldemort rules supreme, caused by the saving of Cedric Diggory. It's down to Albus and Scorpius to stop her with the help of their respective fathers.

Critiques

Overall, the two main criticisms this story receives are:

1. It reads like fan fiction.
2. The characters don't talk and act like themselves, at least the recurring ones.

I think these two are correlated. By that, I mean one causes the other and vice-versa. On the character front, I'll tackle that later, but for me, one of the reasons I kind of felt a little bit of fan-fiction in this story came right out of the premise of the conflict: time travel.

I wrote another article in the past where I explained why the argument of "why the time turners were never used in other situations" is invalid, in my opinion, if one really thinks about how time turners work. I thought it was more original than people gave it credit for because it was something that was only used once for a logical reason.

However, the time turner presented in this story is so different that I'd argue it can't even be called a Time Turner at all. It removes all originality from the time travel aspect of this story because it ends up being simply a 'butterfly effect' story, as an excuse for us to watch a bunch of what-if scenarios and our characters acting out of character.

It's all magic we've seen before in other stories, even if in those stories, it wasn't called magic, and it doesn't have the creative, crazy, new magical concepts that pretty much every Harry Potter story presented. I think that the small size of the book and the importance these alternate timelines are given makes the main focus of the script simply to see different realities—and those realities are not that interesting, given that the characters in them are by no means the same. By the end, they're nullified.

Other main problems with the story rely mostly on how the characters act and behave, even in the alternate timelines, so I'll save that analysis for when I get to characterization.

Pacing

Given that I haven't seen the play, this is the one section where I believe I'll have the least grounds to judge the script. The erratic, abrupt, sudden movements forward and back in time are things that feel too sporadic in the book but might not feel as such in the play. It also boils down to the decision to have a story that spans four years, plus travels in time, being depicted as a play, which might not have been the best. To be honest, if the story had jumped from year one directly to year four, it might have worked better.

The progressive strain of Harry and Albus' relationship is nice to see from year to year. Still, it comes at the expense of having major time shifts suddenly happen, with no time to let them sink in, especially when the general audience thinks of a year at Hogwarts as a whole book, not simply three pages. But again, this is something that might work better in the play, so I have little grounds to judge it on, even if it definitely felt odd and distracting in the book.

Characters

This will be the biggest topic I will cover, mainly because I think a lot of the problems with the story come from problems handling the characters, and I couldn't mention one without the other, so I'll cover them all here. However, this is also where I think the book has its biggest strengths, so I'll be sure to cover them as well.

The main positive thing this book achieves as far as characters, and to be fair, on the whole, are the characters of Albus and Scorpius. Never in the description of Slytherin house is it stated that Slytherins are or have to be, in any way, rude or cruel. The Cursed Child stays true to that by showing two cunning, unambitious and resourceful examples of Slytherin lead in Albus and Scorpius.

Their relationship carries the whole story, and it works almost perfectly. I say almost because of the one thing I have to bring up: the excess of 'awkward' moments, for lack of a better word, between them, hinted at a very possible romantic relationship, which was not transparent to most readers, myself included.

The book, however, pulls the rug out from under the readers by having the final scene between them be about their aspirations concerning girls, followed by what is described by the characters themselves as an awkward hug. You would think with that many hints and with J.K.'s explicit views on this matter, the next step would be to actually go the distance and present a homosexual lead to a Harry Potter story. It doesn't ruin the friendship, but it just feels unambitious and contradictory to what has been the story so far.

Nevertheless, each character, on its own, is interesting and compelling; they are not without their own sense of humour, which brings us very funny moments at times. Curiously, I found Albus to be more humorous than his father, at least with Scorpius, and it's all too clear why they're best friends. It's easily the best thing in the story.

As for the recurring characters, we can single out Harry, Draco, Ginny, Ron and Hermione as the ones given enough time to be more fleshed out as adults. However, given the size of the book, the focus is kept more on first Harry and then Draco.

Harry's Character

Harry is pointed at by critics as the one who had the worst transition from Deathly Hallows to Cursed Child, and his character in this book remains overall unlikable and unrecognisable from what we know of Harry as a person. One thing that I always praised in Harry, even though he is nothing like myself, is that while he was at many times stubborn and, in other instances, lashed out at people, it was due to very stressful circumstances.

More importantly, he never crossed any serious lines because, as much of a right as he had to be mad at some points, he was able to restrain himself and listen most of the time. Here, on the other hand, Harry (as an adult facing situations that aren't all that extreme) loses all composure at certain points and lashes out at many characters, his own son included. He doesn't seem to want to see any side of the argument other than his own.

Simply put, at many points, he's quite the jerk. The curious thing is that there are other moments, mostly with Ginny, where Harry is the Harry I remember him being. Still, those offensive outbursts are so integral to the story that the one thing I end up remembering of Harry in this book are those instances where he was downright awful to the people he loved.

Draco's Character

Draco, on the other hand, is less divergent from his original personality, given that we never saw things in the other books from his perspective. Moments here where he opens up just a bit more to Harry or other characters are plausible. He also retains very familiar Draco Malfoy and Lucius Malfoy behaviours, so you definitely get some growth in him, even if it's in unexpected directions, while remaining the Draco that you know. However, the final plot twist with him having another time turner for them to go back to and rejoin their sons felt quite forced, especially because there was absolutely nothing to set that up.

Ron and Hermione

Ron is, very much like his character in the movies, trivialized and, here, reduced to mere comic relief, which is really a waste. Practically every joke he makes to lighten the mood falls flat, not only because the characters around him don't pay any attention but also because it's not funny. Ron always handled tricky situations with a dry, entertaining sense of humour. Here, however, it was mostly cringy and awkward. I'll give him this; he makes true 'dad jokes,' which fit nicely here and there.

Hermione makes somewhat of a smooth transition, remaining fairly loyal to her character throughout, although, arguably, a bit too much. She's still hard-working, concerned, and always giving advice, but she's also a bit insecure, as she was in her youth. One would think, however, that several years as Minister of Magic would have made her more authoritative, almost like Professor McGonagall. However, even McGonagall talks down to her at one point. Harry changed too much. Hermione didn't change enough, but comparatively, the latter is preferable.