Not just tweeny girl crap.
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Notable Cast: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke
A moment of candor, if I may: I didn’t go into Twilight with an open mind. I was expecting it to be the same old tweeny girl crap I get saddled with from time to time doing this reviewing gig. I don’t think anyone can blame me for feeling that way, after all Twilight is based on the mega-popular tweeny girl book series of the same name, written and directed by women (Melissa Rosenberg and Catherine Hardwicke, respectively), starring “It” girl Kristen Stewart, and targeted specifically at the female demographic.
Funny thing, those demographics, they don’t account for things as basic as quality—something that plays well to all audiences. And make no mistake Twilight is an exceptional film. It is not only tolerable, but downright enjoyable. The opening is strictly color-by-numbers high school drama. Bella (Stewart) moves from Arizona to live with her estranged father (the sublime Billy Burke) in the Pacific Northwest. As if that were not bad enough, her small town schoolmates treat her like a celebrity when all she wants to do is mope about and be as gloomy as the weather.
Things get interesting when Bella meets the mysterious Edward (Robert Pattinson) and her heart feels like butter melting down toast (or some cheesy tween girl metaphor). The only trouble is that Edward gets sick at the sight of her, and after one grueling class together he stops coming to school for about a week. Every strong-willed high school girl loves a good challenge, especially one so heart-meltingly sexy, and Bella is determined to find out why Edward is acting so freaky.
In possibly the most agonizingly slow reveal (particularly for a movie that gives away its secret in the preview) in the history of cinema, Bella comes to discover that Edward is a vampire, and that he is indeed desperately, neck-bitingly, blood-suckingly in love with her. Obviously, he doesn’t mind that she is the most dimwitted girl in all of Forks, Washington as it takes her nearly half the movie to figure this all out.
Of course, the thrill is in the chase and it is clear that the draw to the book series, and thus the film, is that butterflies in the stomach lust that Bella and Edward feel toward each other; that forbidden love feeling that feels all the more forbidden because he is a vampire and she is a mere mortal. Hardwicke knows this and plays it up perfectly with extended scenes of the two awkwardly stumbling on their emotions and getting painfully close to kissing without doing so. Once they finally do the payoff is incredibly rewarding and more amazing still because the story doesn’t fall into the trap of suggesting that after that first kiss their love will come easy.
That pragmatic approach is evidently what ropes audiences in because Twilight never opts to pander when it easily could. Series author Stephanie Meyer makes readers care for her characters because they seem like real people (or vampires) faced with actual problems without simple solutions. That fact is impressive enough, but bringing that to the big screen is a greater challenge than one would think. Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg does a great job with it and it makes Twilight far better than its run-of-the-mill brethren.
Everything about Twilight is done with such a sure hand that it nearly impossible not to get caught up in the whole affair, even when Rosenberg and company use direct text that likely reads better than it sounds. But that is a minor distraction in a surprisingly great movie. It is impressive that a movie done by women for women was able to so totally capture the imagination of this male skeptic. So much for those demographics.
