David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived premieres November 15 at 9 pm ET on HBO.
It's been 12 years since the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, but the conclusion of the film franchise was not the end of the Wizarding World. From the Fantastic Beasts prequel films, the Broadway show, and anniversary documentaries to the dedicated merchandise shops, video games, studio tours, and theme park rides, there are plenty of opportunities to engage with the magical realm occupied by Harry and friends. Even with the controversy surrounding JK Rowling's transphobic views tainting some fan's affection for her books and their subsequent adaptations, generations old and new still can't get enough.
Enter the documentary David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived, a somewhat anomalous but no less welcome addition to Harry Potter's screen legacy, offering the story of a stuntman whose life was irrevocably changed by the film franchise. Holmes and Daniel Radcliffe have this in common, yet for vastly different reasons. As the films’ lead, Radcliffe became a household name and multimillionaire, and built an eclectic career across stage and screen. His impressive stunt double's Hollywood dreams, however, were unfairly cut short. During rehearsals for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 in January 2009, Holmes was jerked back by a pulley so hard it broke his neck and left him paralyzed from the waist down.
Thus The Boy Who Lived serves two purposes: to celebrate Holmes's heretofore unsung onscreen heroics, and to acknowledge the reality he has lived with since the accident. Director Dan Hartley uses conventional documentary storytelling to achieve these objectives: three-act structure, emotive score, talking heads, and archival images and videos. A brief introductory scene of Holmes catching up with his old pal Radcliffe in the present establishes their continued friendship before flashbacks lay out his path to becoming the stand-in for YA literature’s most famous wizard. We see a young Essex boy turn to gymnastics to expend his boisterous energy, and soon his fearless skills catch the attention of old-school stuntman and Harry Potter stunt coordinator Greg Powell.
For fans of the franchise, its star, and cinema in general, the abundance of behind-the-scenes footage will appeal, as will the various stunt-training sequences, outtakes, and the camaraderie Holmes, Radcliffe, and stuntmen Tolga Kenan and Marc Mailey express in lively talking-head anecdotes. Radcliffe shares his great admiration for the stunt crew, joking about the sports cars with personalized license plates that announced their presence on set. He saw his double as a cool-older-brother figure who taught him how to hit a bludger and do backflips off walls; Holmes and Mailey were Radcliffe’s closest companions during filming, and the documentary highlights the cinematic education the child actor received during his decade of playing Harry Potter. Holmes’ bright, infectious attitude glues The Boy Who Lived together, and his pride in his work has never faded, even in hindsight. He relished his job even if it meant strenuous six-hour sessions of flying brooms, swimming in water tanks, and taking the majority of the knocks directed at Harry. "You're only living when you're nearly dying," he says.
Hartley focuses on Holmes' post-accident experience, his continued recovery, and the emotional ramifications of such trauma at the expense of a deeper critical assessment of the film industry's risky relationship with stunts. Questions about what happened on set that day, the fallout, and subsequent regulation changes are left frustratingly unanswered. Still, what David Holmes: The Boy Who Lived lacks in field analysis it makes up in emotional depth. Watching these cheeky lads and hard-guy stuntmen break down in tears as they relive the "worst moment of their lives" is a gut-punch. They expose their guilt, hopelessness, and pain in such a potent, unvarnished way it adds an unexpected yet powerful layer of vulnerability. The Boy Who Lived is a worthy story, and Holmes is its beating heart, but the moving bonds of male friendships conjure some tear-jerking magic.
