Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) Review

rating: ****

the story: Grindelwald tries to trick his way to political power, with Dumbledore standing in the way.

review: I've been struggling with how to view this one since its theatrical release earlier this year.  I continued to struggle after reading the screenplay published last month.  A large part of this is that Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was caught up in the continuing scandals surrounding J.K. Rowling, Ezra Miller, and Johnny Depp, which dampened interest in its predecessor, The Crimes of Grindelwald (which is otherwise my favorite movie in the Wizarding World cinematic saga, barring Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire).  Depp's legal hassles continued into production of Secrets, as so he was replaced as Grindelwald by Mads Mikkelsen, and Rowling, previously lone scripter of the Fantastic Beasts films, was joined by Harry Potter veteran screenwriter Steve Kloves.  After being unabashedly wowed by Crimes, I knew I wasn't with Secrets on first viewing, and second viewing didn't change that, and reading the screenplay didn't, and I began to wonder, were my reservations justified?  Or was this simply a different movie experience?

I kept trying.  Eventually my conclusion was that this is perhaps the first film in the saga where the human drama is more important than the wizarding drama.  I understood this on one level.  It's the first time the material has acknowledged what had previously only existed in Rowling's tweets, that Dumbledore is gay, and his relationship with Grindelwald is complicated by that, and by extension, his ability to fight him.

The film opens with a quiet conversation between them, in which Dumbledore explains that he has moved past their youthful ideas, and this offends Grindelwald, because of course he hasn't, and has become a notorious figure in the wizarding community as he presses on with them.  The conversation, and the film, and the series (this is Dumbledore's second appearance in them, after Crimes), still ignores how Dumbledore could ever have shared them, except by extension through the complicated nature of his sister Ariana, and her death, which ties into the character of Credence Barebone, whose story began in the first film, and whose true lineage was revealed in Crimes, but explained here in Secrets: he's Aberforth Dumbledore's son.  Dumbledore is his uncle.

Grindelwald has been manipulating Credence, as we saw him operating throughout Crimes.  He trades on fear in order to achieve his goals.  He also won Queenie Goldstein to his side last film, shattering a relationship with muggle baker Jacob Kowalski.  Dumbledore maneuvers against Grindelwald as best he can throughout Secrets.  He recruits Jacob, an unlikely ally as ever, as well as the Scamander brothers, Newt and Theseus, as well as others.

Newt was ostensibly the star of these films, certainly in the first one, until Dumbledore appeared in Crimes and then dominated Secrets.  And it might seem as if Newt indeed takes a definitive backseat, here, especially with the near absence of Tina Goldstein, the American wizard he fell in love with previously (some reports are that Katherine Waterston's participation was diminished, this time, due to her stance against Rowling).

And yet his unabashed enthusiasm for the title beasts, and his otherwise bashful demeanor, remain the heart of these films, as he gets to spend time with his brother as an actual colleague for the first time, which along with Jacob and Queenie and learning the truth of Credence's existence moves original stories from the first film along nicely.  Newt and Theseus have the best sequence of the film as they enact another of Newt's trademark beast-centric performances, this time scuttling like a crab.

Eddie Redmayne's star has dimmed in recent years.  I'm hard-pressed to think of his work outside these films, and yet the films themselves remain clearly affectionate of his unique charms.  Callum Turner, as Theseus, has become a more distinguished actor (for me, anyway, as I discovered in Emma.), so it's nice to see him in an expanded role.  Alison Sudol has been a standout as Queenie from the start, and I doubt anyone could've been more quintessentially American for the time period than Dan Fogler's Jacob, who has threatened to steal all of the movies.

But is there any real doubt that Jude Law's Dumbledore is the center of Secrets?  He had better be, getting his name in the title!  By the time Dumbledore and Grindelwald duel, we've seen Dumbledore do everything possible to avoid that moment.  When it's suggested he become the new leader of the wizarding community, the moment becomes the heart of how to interpret the movie around it.  No attention is called to Dumbledore, until he's pulled from a crowd as it happens, and he talks his way out of it, the way Harry Potter once convinced the Sorting Hat to place him in Gryffindor, and the moment passes.  No one argues the point.  No one draws attention to him at all.  It happens.  And the story moves on.

How to interpret it, and the whole film, rests on how comfortable you are with the rapid ascent of Grindelwald, and his just as rapid descent.  As viewers we're privy to nearly every beat of how this is accomplished, so relentlessly, throughout the movie.  The opening scene of Crimes was said to be distractedly dizzying, when Grindelwald breaks out of prison, and yet this is a whole movie in which, to accomplish what it needs to, the viewer has to accept two hours of logic that makes internal sense, and yet also feels as if, in a different reality, would have played out over several films.  Possibly.  The studio has been expressing doubt for years.  I follow a website that breathlessly reported every negative aspect of production, cheering on the possibility of failure.  Was this what it was always supposed to be?

And perhaps so.  This is what we never got to see with Voldemort, after all.  The other arcs feel so natural, this must always have been in the cards, surely?  Crimes ends dramatically with Grindelwald having split the wizarding community in half.  Secrets suggests winning the right allies makes even the impossible possible (from criminal to candidate, which even the Star Wars prequels didn't dare attempt; Palpatine appears the innocent even after his drastic transformation).

And...the more I live with this, the more comfortable.  At no point does the film dwell on Grindelwald as a real threat, except as Dumbledore's opposite number.  This is all supposed to build (like the Star Wars prequels) to a legendary duel, against which the one that happens in Secrets is mere prelude.  In some respects, there are notes in Secrets that feel like a possible concluding note (Jacob and Queenie marrying), should the studio decide to end the series early.  And yet Dumbledore acknowledges Newt as a valuable ally, even as Grindelwald has lost his (Credence, whose arc concludes here, too), which ought to sound...ominous.  The fight isn't over.  Grindelwald only becomes more dangerous, once more on the loose, nothing left to lose, and he has already endlessly proven his inventive resilience.  

The conclusion, for me, of how to view Secrets of Dumbledore is as a quiet success, in much the character of Newt himself, watching as all the drama around him boils down to Dumbledore and Grindelwald, as they're forced to confront the reality that they will one day have to fight each other.  Forget everyone else, every thing else.  This really does hinge on that conversation, at the start of the film.  And that's actually refreshing.