A Newt look at Potter

25 November 2016 - 02:21 By Robbie Collin

JK Rowling’s latest carries a weirdly modern buzz, writes Robbie CollinA film about a magical zoo-keeper has turned out to be the most unexpectedly relevant blockbuster of 2016. Back in September 2013, when Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was unveiled, everything about Warner Bros' latest megabudget franchise seemed vacuum-packed and reheated to order.It was an extension of the studio's lucrative Harry Potter franchise - based on a series of books by JK Rowling which were themselves no commercial slouch.It would be directed by David Yates, 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, giving the project the Potterian imprimatur, positioning it more as elaboration than spin-off. 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 a US caught in the jaws of fear and paranoia has the ring of the here and now. 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 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 via Ellis Island - from where Manhattan's skyscrapers really do look magical - with a 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" (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 throughout the script, 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, 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 émigrés from a video game, gently psychedelic and radiantly realised. Watching Redmayne bottle-feed a cherubic jellyfish thing feels strangely good for the soul.Newt and Jacob must track down this lot as surreptitiously as possible with help from Porpentina Goldstein, a former FBI type, and her breathy bombshell of a sister Queenie, 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. - ©The Daily TelegraphOpens in cinemas today..

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