Do You Believe It

[Hugh Kenrick]

Setting aside the films' main plot for a moment, there's a lot of teen awkwardness in HP6. While I enjoyed it, and Dumbledore's comment about 'to be young and feel the sharp pangs of love (sorry, paraphrasing), put it all in perspective; the chemistry of the actors seemed a bit forced.

In the books, we get to hear a lot more Ron/Hermione banter, and it's clearly one of those opposites attract sort of situations. Harry/Ginny was more understated, and I think it works for them. He's got a lot of burdens, and she's very supportive and yet tough in her own Weasly/Molly sort of way, so that chemistry works all right. I have more trouble justifying in my own mind whether I believe the actors portraying Ron/Hermione. I can't put my finger on it, but it just doesn't work for me.

[lizz]

Part of the problem is how Ron is portrayed in the films, basically he was pushed aside quite a lot, so the movies lack the obvious attraction between Ron and Hermione. There were a few scenes that foreshadowed the relationships, especially in PoA, but in HBP the attraction isnt obvious.
Its shown that Hermione has feelings for Ron quite nicely I think but his feelings for her were not at all clear. Not the fault of the actors but of the scripts :)
I liked how the Harry Ginny relationship was done until the weird scene in the RoR. He needed to react to this.

[Hugh Kenrick]

Part of the problem is how Ron is portrayed in the films, basically he was pushed aside quite a lot, so the movies lack the obvious attraction between Ron and Hermione. There were a few scenes that foreshadowed the relationships, especially in PoA, but in HBP the attraction isnt obvious.
Its shown that Hermione has feelings for Ron quite nicely I think but his feelings for her were not at all clear. Not the fault of the actors but of the scripts :)
I liked how the Harry Ginny relationship was done until the weird scene in the RoR. He needed to react to this.

Agreed. And I don't think that realistically written scenes of those relationships was what they were going for. They don't have time to dwell on the 'ships' anyway, they have to drive the story forward, and catch a few moments a of drama/character dynamics along the way.

That said, I would also lay some blame oat the Director's door. At this point I'd say that Yates doesn't really have much of a grasp on what an intimate character scene is supposed to be like. This could end up being Lucas-like by the end. His comments that came out recently on how the first film of the next two will be very tightly focused on the triad, but he seems more of a broad swath storyteller to me. We'll see how it goes. His grasp of the story and it's important events (and many moving parts) improved slightly from HP5, which I didn't like.

Movie making is difficult when working with a beloved story. That it holds together at all is an achievement.