Despite Emma Watson’s fashion forward tendencies and Daniel Radcliffe’s willingness to bare it all on the London stage, I’ve still managed to imagine the cast of Harry Potter as the young, somewhat innocent characters I pictured when I read the books. David Yates, though, does an incredible job of transforming the youngsters into actual adults. The movie really captures the solitude and maturity of the characters in a way that I didn’t fully experience from reading.

The Deathly Hallows itself wasn’t particularly artful or unique, but it did what the readers wanted and needed, which is faithfully retell the story. Even with the two part nature of the final films, this movie didn’t skirt around the storyline, but instead dove right in, keeping a quick pace till the end. Also, while this movie was probably the gravest of them all, it was littered with quips and jokes that lightened the tone when needed (and cemented Ron Weasley as my favorite screen character).

The movie also surprised me with its use of “O Children” by Nick Cave in one of the more emotional scenes. I have to say, I’m completely on the fence about whether deviating from the original film score would have been a solid idea from the beginning. While I won’t deny that the original music was part of what created an entirely new world, I sometimes think that it’s repetition didn’t add to the growing complexity of the story and the characters. The first movie was for kids, and the whimsical score captured that. The Deathly Hallows, with it’s PG-13 rating, was meant for a broader audience and deserved a broader range of music to tell the story.

To give you a taste of what that may have looked like, we found a few youtube gems we think you’ll enjoy.

Sidenote: there are some very SERIOUS Harry Potter fans out there):

If Greys Anatomy can do it…