Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

by J.K. Rowling

Warner Bros.

I truly can’t imagine a more biased review than this review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The only way this review could be more biased would be if J.K. Rowling took me out to lunch, signed all my books, called me her best friend, named a character after me, bought me a ticket to The Cursed Child, and paid me a million dollars.

Let me count the ways in which I’m predisposed to like this film:

1. This movie has lots of imaginary animals. RedheadedGirl warned me ahead of time that I would probably want most of the beasts to be my pets. This was an accurate assessment. I am willing to like any movie that has a giant snake/dragon thingy who can fit in a teapot and a modified platypus who steals diamonds. I’m a simple woman with simple needs and those needs include CGI beasties. Needs met. Am happy.

2. I am married to a wildlife biologist whose job involves protecting endangered species. He looks remarkably like Newt Scamander only with less hair. The minute Newt made a speech about preserving magical creatures I was a goner. Wildlife biologists are HOT.

3. I’m a huge fan of J.K. Rowling and I find it difficult to look at her work with the critical eye that it often deserves. And while she does deserve a lot of praise, she deserves a lot of criticism, too. Among other things, she puts all her focus on white characters, and she wrote the hideously embarrassing History of Magic in North America. It’s hard for me to see her work clearly because I am defensive of her in the way one might be defensive of one’s best friend. But critical I must be. IT’S MY JOB.

Now that I have the disclaimers out of the way, here’s the plot. Fantastic Beasts is basically three movies jammed together into one, with mixed results. The main plot involves Newt Scamander, a British wizard (Hufflepuff FTW!) who shows up in New York with a beat up suitcase full of magical beasts. The beasts promptly escape, and Newt, who is brilliant when it comes to animals and clueless with regard to everything else, has to find them. Not much of a plot, but like I said, I’m a simple woman and Newt chasing a niffler through a jewelry shop is all I require from life. Newt is at first encumbered and then assisted by Tina (a former auror), Tina’s sister Queenie, and as a non-magical human named Jacob (I refuse to use the word no-maj, because it sounds so damn stupid).

The second plot involves the conflict between the not-so-secret magical community in New York City and the non-magical community which has an anti-magic movement led by the extremely creepy Mary Lou Barebone (played by Samantha Morton who channels the unflappable menace of Louise Fletcher from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest). Something magical, large, and violent has been terrorizing the city, and naturally once Newt shows up the magical authorities figure it must be one of his escaped beasts. The magical people are desperate to keep themselves secret from the non-magical people, who have started to figure out that magic is among them and aren’t happy about it. A giant monster running around the city is likely to blow their cover.

However, one of these authorities, Percival Graves, played by Colin Farrell, thinks the beast might be an Obscurus. An Obscurus is a parasitical force hosted by a child who has tried to suppress their magical abilities (you’ll find many different variations on the definition online but that’s the gist). Graves thinks that the Obscurus may be found in one of Mary Lou’s adopted children and he asks the oldest of the children, Credence, to help him find it.

All this is just barely held together by Newt’s attempts to recapture his beasts and settle them in the habitats he keeps in his magical suitcase which, like the TARDIS, is bigger on the inside than the outside. Even though Newt’s main plotline is feather-light, it’s by far the most fun and engaging. For one thing, Newt is a great hero because he’s different. He has a lot of symptoms consistent with being on the Autism spectrum – he doesn’t get social cues, he’s impatient with the idea that people do illogical things, his speech is awkward, and he hates making eye contact. But around his animals he relaxes and is incredibly tender. Given the number of movie heroes who are obsessed with performative masculinity, Newt crooning, “There there, Mommy’s here,” to a nest of purple snakes is incredibly sweet.

The other thing that works well is the interplay of the four main characters and the qualities they bring to the movie. Tina is the one torn between the establishment and rebellion. Queenie is caring and totally accepts non-magical people (her line, “You’re one of us now, Sweetie,” must surely send a glow through the heart of every muggle). And Jacob brings the sense of wonder, as the audience’s point-of-view character. Each character represents a different way of looking at the world. Tina looks at the world through the lens of responsibility, Newt through curiosity, Queenie through affection, and Jacob looks at the world through a lens of amazement.

Queenie and Jacob have the sweetest romance ever. I loved that Queenie is flirtatious but not slut-shamed, and that Jacob is not fat-shamed – the closest thing to a fat joke is that he has trouble fitting through the suitcase (he works it out). Newt and Tina have a hint of a romance but it’s pretty flat (although watch for Tina’s little skip at the end; it’s adorable).

The cast of Fantastic Beasts is disappointingly white. I was pleased that the only major character who isn’t white is the President of the Magical Council of America. She’s in charge, although she’s in charage of an organization which is deliberatly portrayed as MESSED UP. Also Tina and Queenie are implied to be Jewish, which is significant given that the movie is set in 1926 and that Rowling has hinted that the story will parallel the rise of fascism.

There’s a couple of glaringly problematic elements to the film other than the unecessarily white and straight cast. First of all, yes, Johnny Depp is in the movie. Luckily he’s only in it for a few minutes towards the end. However, he will have a major role in this movie’s planned sequels. Also, the storyline involving Credence, who is abused, is very triggery for abuse survivors. It’s a bit more bearable if you know what subsequent movies have in store, but it’s still hard going as he’s very much reduced to a plot device instead of getting the storyline he deserves.

Theoretically this movie should stand on it’s own, but I later discovered that it makes much more sense if you are familiar with Harry Potter lore and if you have acess to the internet where fans explain everything that J.K. Rowling did not bother to explain during the movie. This is, in my opinion, a mark of sloppy movie making. It also led to my husband and I have a screaming argument about screening people for polyjuice potion use while we drove home from Thanksgiving with his parents. GEEK ACCOMPLISHMENT UNLOCKED! Our conclusion: there’s a lot of idiots in the magical world.

Rowling likes to trade in metaphor, and her metaphors tend to be flawed but powerful. The message I took away from this movie was that when people are afraid, they act in ways that are both destructive and self-destructive. In this movie, everyone is afraid of something. The non-magical people fear wizards and the wizards fear the non-magical people and people in both groups fear other members of their own groups. Everyone fears the beasts and the beasts fear people, and always in the background is the trauma of the First World War.

The movie is most interesting when it shows why everyone on every side of argument thinks they are on the right side. Fear and fear’s twin, anger, motivate everyone who does something bad, and a lot of bad things are done. What makes Newt such a compelling figure is that he is very rarely afraid of anything. He’s too clueless about social cues and manners to worry about people and while he respects the power of the beasts, he loves them too much to be afraid of them. While other people view lives as things that can hurt them or things that can be used, Newt views every individual life as amazing and interesting and worthy of care.

I can’t give this movie an A because the construction and metaphors are sloppy and for heaven’s sakes, why doesn’t Newt carry his animals in something more secure than a broken suitcase?

But I did enjoy the movie, especially the animals, the interplay between the four main characters, and the visuals. There’s a scene in which a city street is being magically repaired and broken fire escapes spin through the air in a slow ballet. It’s one out of the many lovely, dreamlike images that make the movie so fun.

NB: Check out Amanda’s dissenting opinion on the movie.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is in theaters now and you can find tickets (US) at Fandango and Moviefone.