Film Review--Twilight

Twilight
directed by Catherine Hardwicke
written by Melissa Rosenberg
based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer
starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Kellan Lutz, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Rachelle Lefevre

Oh the sodden teen romance. In this film it is so innocent and vain and so jacked up with hormonal energy drinks that it blinds the viewer into buying the Harliquen Romance nature of it all.

Based on the internationally acclaimed series of books by Stephanie Meyer this is the first in what will surely be a long enduring franchise of films that will no doubt please a large portion of its target audience. For those of us who have not read a single line, we must judge the film on strictly cinematic terms. Ultimately, it’s a single snapshot of a faraway place and naturally the image will fade and completely disappear over time.

The story involves two very different type of creatures. We are first introduced to an awkward and clumsy girl named Bella who is moving from her Mother’s place in Phoenix to live with her Dad in Forks, Washington. She’s the new girl at school and it seems everyone ogles her and treats her like an exotic object for their consumption. She sees a group of students traipsing lazily into the lunchroom and is informed that they are the Cullen clan and that they are infinitely strange. Naturally her eye is caught by one of the Cullens–a mysterious, intense boy named Edward. They share a table in biology class and he ignores her. Tortured she becomes possessed by the need to understand him. Thus begins the angst filled romance that the film is built around.

Edward and his family are vampires who only suck the blood out of animals. They are polite, cultured, and seemingly quite reasonable. They welcome Bella into their home and most of them treat her like a welcomed guest. Bella is completely into the Vampire aesthetic and longs to be just like them without comprehending the implications that such a transformation would warrant.

The film certainly contains a number of lovely images and the camera takes full advantage of coastal Washington to create a quaint, tempered atmosphere that is exploited at every turn. It is gorgeous to look at and creates a definite sense of place but the story proper lacks the equivalent of what is behind Edvard’s tremendous eyes. Indeed, it is his eyes which are truly the focus of this film. He scans and penetrates and even has the ability to scare off intruders just by staring at them. At times, though, it seems that young Mr. Pattinson, who routinely soaks panties worldwide, is forcing the issue a bit too much. His eyes tend not so much to smoulder but rather to most likely cause him eye strain. He appears to be trying so hard to look intense and foreboding that it comes off as just a bit too much. Still, for the most part, these eyes are the eyes of an exceedingly dangerous character. Bella knows this but her blossoming teen aged lust must be satiated at all costs.

Yes, it’s all about teen lust. The longing, self-reproach, pestering need to feel and touch everything, the tingling of the object of utter devotion and fascination. It’s all here and oft times it feels right. That first kiss, the lingering, the hope all drive these two to a near fatal embrace. Yet, the romance does not quite carry the film to where it needs to go. There is poetry here but it gets cramped by an insistence on the superficial aspects of their interaction. There is nothing truly worth dying for in their embrace. These are simply two kids caught up in the slick beast of carnal necessity and nothing else. At times it’s sappy and subsequently the energy is sucked out of the scene. The film insists that we follow them into the grave if necessary but it lacks the fear and terror that any worthy vampire film possesses as a matter of course. There is no agony, no blistering sorrow at play as the vampire gets closer to the throat of the one he most wants to devour. The film lacks tension when it needs it the most although the scene where Bella exposes her throat to Edward does have a giddy awareness of the possibilities inherent in every attempt to unmask the vampire Mythos. It’s the closest thing to the sacred in the entire film. The wrecked path of vampires, the unquenchable thirst for blood, the haunted nature of every displaced fiend–are not properly examined here. It’s the fated romance of two adolescents and it feels as if it has been taken straight from any number of teen-related television programs.

Yet, the relationship is delicately filmed and oh so slow to develop. It takes its time and there are scenes where hunger drives each of them to a line they are not yet ready the cross. Then in the next scene they roam a bit further until the inevitable kiss and presumably everything else that must follow. One can only wonder what sex with a charismatic, impossibly strong vampire would do to the poor girl. Could she actually stand being mounted by a boy with Edward’s special talents? The tension would have to be unbearable and it’s difficult to imagine what the release would feel like. Can vampires copulate in the traditional way or is sex secondary to the thrill of the chase?

Edward mentions that he has killed before and this knowledge sits fine with Bella. He could probably tell her he raped babies and it wouldn’t matter. Bella is a girl who is so utterly controlled by her attraction that she is blind to anything that would send up red flags in the minds of every other girl. Still, this aspect of the film is never satisfactorily explored. We never really understand why Bella has so given up herself to a force that tricks her into thinking it is benign. Can this possibly be love? Or is it merely lust diluted with sentimentality?

For all its flaws, this film delivers on its promise and gives teen aged girls precisely what they want if they ever know what they want. It provides the fantasy that there is an Edward out there for every girl who deserves to be treated like a princess and obsessed over. It’s a fairly uncomplicated story of young lust and what teenage girl can’t relate to that? The film relies on the ability of the audience to believe in something much stronger than mere human emotion. It wants to tap into a more primal, urgent and daemonic source that necessitates all power, lust, greed, etc. But it remains on the surface happy to touch lightly on the darker, more aggressive elements of Vampires and their kin.

The performances in this film give slavish fans precisely what they deserve. They aren’t particularly memorable but they do what is expected of them. The two young leads effectively stare into each others eyes as directed and they are both obviously the benefactors of impressive genes so they are not too difficult to look at. They actually seem to be striving for an opportunity to demonstrate a less defanged story that might be able to tear out a still beating heart. Rachelle Lefevre plays Victoria, one of the rival vampires and she’s vital and demanding and perfect for what will come next.

Overall, this is a passable first telling of the book series but there just isn’t enough depth of character to make it into anything more. It tells a simple story about human-vampire scaldings but neither the tone or the style of the film reveals anything particularly novel that would have imbued the story with the essence of the mystical. For a supernatural story there is very little that comes off as magical. The relationship that we are supposed to want so desperately just doesn’t seem particularly special. Ultimately there is just nothing much to lose.