When Joanne Met Harry

In its first weekend, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part II broke box office records. I have seen it and I promise a review if forthcoming.

Last Monday, Lifetime aired their newest original movie entitled “Magic Beyond Words: The J.K. Rowling Story.” Three guesses as to what it’s about.

The story opens at the premiere for “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” (“Sorceror’s Stone” for us Americans). Joanne Rowling (Poppy Montgomery) arrives and is overwhelmed. As she takes time to collect herself, she spies a young girl dressed as a witch. This takes her back to her own childhood. We cut to a young Joanne (Aislyn Watson) playing with her sister Diane in the woods. Her mother, Anne (Janet Kidder), supports Joanne in her endeavors—especially her writing and love for books. However, young Joanne as well as Teen Joanne (Madison Desjarlais) are bullied in school. She is clearly very smart but tends to daydream in class. Her teachers encourage her to pursue writing, but she writes it off as impractical.

As Joanne earns a degree in Languages and struggles to retain a job, she watches her mother deteriorate due to Multiple Sclerosis. Anne continues to encourage her daughter to write, but Jo just can’t find the right story. On a train ride from another job interview, she finds it. She finds herself and Diana as children playing as witches before stumbling upon familiar sights to Harry Potter fans: a wand, a Gryffindor scarf and the long-awaited letter to Hogwarts. Jo goes home and immediately starts writing again.

Her writing is halted when her mother dies on New Year’s. Jo decides to go teach English in Portugal. That’s where she meets Jorge Arantes (Antonio Cupo) most likely known as that “jerk ex-husband.” And since this is a Lifetime Movie, I’m not entirely sure how accurate a portrayal this guy gets. It’s hard to see why Jo accepted his proposal, especially when it comes after she catches him cheating on her. The marriage is breezed through as one minute they’re married, the next Jo is pregnant and finally she has baby Jessica. When an unemployed Jorge becomes a drunk and violent, Jo flees with her daughter and returns home.

She goes on welfare and finds an apartment for herself and Jessica. She is supported by her sister Diana, who is the first to read “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” She encourages Jo to continue writing and that’s what she does. She uses candles, saves to buy a typewriter and writes in restaurants as her daughter sleeps.

She finally finishes the book and sends it to several agents. How she did it? Is not the best way to do so. Like other unsolicited manuscripts, the story ended up in the slush pile. Jo gets rejection after rejection. At the Christopher Little Agency, a young assistant named Bryony (Christine Chatelain) reads Jo’s manuscript and starts to actively campaign for her. Christopher Little (Andy Maton) takes her on as a client. He warns her to keep her expectations low—children’s books do not sell well.

Jo takes a job as a teacher while Christopher and Bryony try to get the book published. Places pass until Bloomsbury picks it up, changing Jo’s life. She buys her daughter a giant teddy bear and celebrates when her book finally arrives in stores. As she waits for her first reading, Jo encounters a mother who can’t put the book down. But her story isn’t done yet. There’s still America to conquer, which she does. And with that, we return to the premiere. After the movie, Joanne is asked what she would see if she were to look into the Mirror of Erised. She evades the question and returns home to her daughter. Jessica asks for the same story Anne used to read her daughters. In the mirror, Jo sees Anne staring back at her and smiling.

The ending is information about Harry Potter and Rowling.

The movie is rushed. It is a lot to compress, I understand. But I think for the movie to work, it needed to make a firm decision. It could’ve been about how Jo wrote Harry Potter and how it changed her life dramatically. Or it could be about how Jo’s life influenced Harry Potter. Instead, both were smashed together into a two-hour movie. Actually, it was not even two hours as there were commercial breaks.

I’ve loved Poppy Montgomery since I started watching “Without a Trace.” Sam(antha) Spade was my favorite character, along with Martin. (In truth, I always hoped they’d end up together but that’s another story). I like her as Rowling. She resembles Jo a bit. Her accent was a bit off, though. I know Montgomery isn’t American—she is from New Zealand—but it didn’t sound authentically British either. However, she was engaging and made me feel for Jo’s story. Also compelling was the actress who played Diana Rowling and to Christine Chatelain as Bryony.

I liked how they showed where Jo drew her inspiration from as she wrote her story—two men playing chess inspired “Wizard Chess,” a hapless government official just processing welfare inspired the goblins at Gringotts, etc. If only they threw that in more, but it may have started infringing on Warner Brothers’ copyrights.

Would I give it a second viewing? Yes. Would I call it a masterpiece? No. But it’s still good for any Potter fans out there.