Deconstructing ‘Harry’

On some playgrounds, it’s not enough merely to have seen “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” on the big screen.

Some kids--coincidentally, smart, bookish kids--feel a need to know all the details. They notice, say, that Hermione has buckteeth in the book but not on screen. And if they have trouble remembering such things, like 10-year-old Eric Billingham of Bloomington, Ind., they may even bring paper and pencil to the theater.

“He wanted to do it as an intellectual exercise,” says his father, Robert, who, with varying combinations of his three kids, has seen the movie five times.

That nearly religious obsession--also found among some adults--is prompting a pattern of repeat viewing that demographers and marketers are still struggling to grasp.

“It is moving into territory unto itself,” said Tom Borys, president of ACNielsen EDI, a Hollywood firm that follows box-office statistics. “I don’t think there is any demographic that is not going to see the film, to some degree. The book, ostensibly a children’s book, has got appeal across all age groups.”

Some scholars have resorted to describing the “Harry Potter” phenomenon in religious terms. Syracuse University popular culture professor Robert Thompson says schoolyard discussions can reach a level of passion and detail matched only by Talmudic debate. Some parents are using the “Harry Potter” franchise the way teachers have used Greek myths, to introduce children to critical and analytical thinking.

“It’s not enough to have seen the ‘Harry Potter’ movie to hold your own in the cultural conversation in the hyper-pretentiousness of an American third-grade classroom,” Thompson says. “One must be capable of explicating the minutiae of the text like an English professor might do with James Joyce.”

Harry Potter, already hailed in some circles as the savior of reading test scores in the classroom, might also be the Patron Saint of the Constantly Harassed Little Person in the hallways.

He’s an 11-year-old orphan being raised by evil relatives, until the magical Hagrid whisks him away to Hogwarts, the highly selective wizard school.

There, Harry, unbeknownst to him, is already famous. He’s the classic misunderstood figure who becomes the hero. So, while some kids might take a casual interest in Harry’s humble beginnings and magical mishaps, others see the boy wizard as an iconic mirror of themselves, the tortured geek who is, after years of hardship, redeemed.

It is those kids who see themselves as having the most to gain from Harry, and who waste no time in learning everything there is to know about creator J.K. Rowling’s extensive universe. But even the ones who aren’t so enthralled feel the need to get in on the action.

“All the people in my class have seen it,” said 7-year-old Bonnie Regan of Santa Monica, explaining why she was seeing the film for the first time, about two weeks ago.

Most kids have seen the movie a couple of times and know all the books, Thompson says. “But then there are always a couple of high priests [who are] able to hold court and resolve disputes.”Bryan Pione, 9, of Irvine could be considered one of those high priests.

“I’ve read all the books three times and seen the movie once,” he says. “In the movie, they left out some things that they did in the book, like bringing Norbert up to the top of the castle, but it’s OK.”

(Norbert, by the way, is a baby dragon.)

There is also the aforementioned Eric Billingham, the Indiana lad who took notes during the film after reading “Sorcerer’s Stone” roughly five times. “There was a lot more stuff in the book than in the movie,” Eric expounds. “Peeves was hardly in it. And then there was the way they found the third-floor corridor. In the book there was going to be a duel with Draco Malfoy, but in the movie, the staircase just moves on them and they end up there.”Eric also takes issue with the fact that Harry gets a new bedroom in the book but not in the film. This is important, Eric explains, because in future books, Ron Weasley comes to take Harry away from the Dursleys, and how will Ron know where to find Harry without the bedroom?

Follow?

It may sound extreme, but experts say Harry’s tale of magic and bravery is each child’s discovery--one that, like a sacred text, needs to be protected. And also something they can be expert on.

Take 7-year-old Brent O’Neill of Sunland, who took a moment last weekend to expound on the movie while waiting to see it for a second time outside a Burbank theater.

“In one part, Harry is a baby,” the 7-year-old notes. “But then he just turned big! There should be more of him”--Brent sticks out a hand and gradually moves it upward--”growing up.”

It’s too early to tell whether “Sorcerer’s Stone,” which so far has earned more than $250 million in the U.S., will overtake the $1.8-billion worldwide record boasted by 1997’s “Titanic.” But “Sorcerer’s Stone” is expected to draw strong repeat business through Christmas--no small trick, given that New Line Cinema’s “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” opened Wednesday.

“My son and I both went the first time more focused on how have they messed up this movie from the book,” Robert Billingham said. “But it was close enough that you didn’t think that it stunk. The second time I just sat down and watched it as a movie and found it far, far more enjoyable, and that’s how I’ve enjoyed it ever since.”