"Film Review: Twilight" by Melissa

Movie Review: Twilight


Perhaps I expect too much from supernatural coming-of-age tales. I’ve been spoiled. ‘Buffy’ gave me strong female characters, witty banter, and true emotion. ‘Harry Potter’ gave me dead language references, a plethora hilariously-named characters, and Ron Weasley (for which I will be forever thankful). ‘Sabrina the Teenage Witch’ gave me a talking cat with worse lip-syncing than Mr Ed. Ah, that crazy cat Salem. Always getting up to such wacky hijinks.

So maybe I went into Twilight – the first film based on the books by Stephanie Myer – with expectations that were far too high. I mean, it was always going to be bad, but I did expect there to be some chemistry between the two romantic leads. After all, this series made its name by making abstinence look sexy. What I didn’t expect was for the audience to laugh through all the romantic dialogue. (Actually, in some ways, this was quite a pleasant surprise. What a feeling of camaraderie!) The main character of Twilight is (ostensibly) Bella Swan, who moves to the cold and rainy town of Forks to live with her father. Bella is… um… clumsy. That’s just about the only personality trait I can remember from two hours of viewing. She’s not so much a lead, as completely leaden. Of course, this is partly the point of Bella. Her lack of personality is intentional, as she exists primarily to be an empty vessel so that teenage girls can live vicariously through her. … But it’s still disappointing.

On her first day at her new school, she meets Edward Cullen, a pale and extremely attractive peer. He belongs to an adopted family of equally pale and attractive folk. When he sees/smells her the first time in class, he has some sort of fit, and proceeds to retch into his hand for the rest of the lesson. Ah, to be young and in love. The two characters strike up a friendship of sorts, they awkwardly twitch around each other a bit, he saves her from being hit by a truck, she figures out he’s a vampire, he sparkles in the sunlight and freaks out about his extreme hotness, they proceed to date. As you do. Oh, yeah, and there are some bad vampires and also a plot, kind of.

I wasn’t particularly fond of the script for this film (perhaps unsurprising, written as it was by Melissa Rosenberg, who wrote dance-flick ‘Step Up’, and being based on the series of books that it is), but the acting from Kristen Stewart (as Bella Swan) and Robert Pattinson (as Edward) just make an already bad situation worse. She’s twitchy, and he just can’t brood convincingly. When they’re allowed to smile I felt my icy heart thawing, but unfortunately most of the time they look like they’ve been beaten with the unhappy stick. Or their family has been beaten to death. Why so sullen, Edward Cullen?

My main problem, however, is that this film is going to be viewed by thousands of teenage girls, all of whom are presumably supposed to aspire to the type of undying, un-dead love depicted. It’s not that I don’t think a vampire would make a suitable life partner (because, hello, Angel and Spike), but the relationship here… Bella falls in love with Edward within a matter of days, declares her eternal love, and quickly decides to devote her entire life to him. She puts up with his hot and cold attitude, his moodiness, and just general bitchiness. She’s apparently okay with the fact that their love is based on her appearance and the WAY SHE SMELLS, as opposed to her personality. She doesn’t mind that he secretly follows her around when she goes for a shopping expedition with her friends, and sneaks into her room at night to watch her sleep. Not to mention that she shouldn’t try and kiss her him, or “tempt” him in any way, because otherwise he might lose control. Bad Bella, you should know better. You can’t flaunt your sexuality in front of guys (er, I mean, vampires), because they can’t be held responsible for their actions? They can’t be expected to exercise self-control. New York Entertainment put it best: “It really drives home the book’s overarching message of the dangers of female sexuality when we actually see flushed temptress Bella, late at night in her bedroom, forcing herself upon Edward and the poor innocent vampire flinging himself against a wall to keep himself in check.”

That said, the film does have some redeeming qualities. I was really quite enamored of the cinematography, and now wish I lived in a world where everything was covered in a blue-green film, and with really pretty diffused light. And, okay, I was totally into the fairy-light prom scene. Giant mansions with nice floorboards and twinkling gazebos rock my socks. The costuming was also quite awesome, what with the pretty matching-the-scenery colour scheme. Also: Manic-pixie-girl-vampire Alice is totally badass, and jumps on the bad vampire’s back and BREAKS HIS NECK. Mostly, however, the film is to be admired because it – in some ways – improves on the book.

While the film makes Bella’s sudden infatuation with Edward seem even more ridiculous – because we aren’t privy to her thoughts and feelings, only her twitchy physical reaction – it does cut out many of the trite and completely overblown scenes from the book. Lines such as “you’re intoxicated by my very presence” are thankfully gone. Bella’s new friends at Forks are also way cooler. In the book they are all insufferable and boring – either completely shallow or personality-less – whereas in the film the nerd chick wears cool glasses and the shallow girl is semi-sweet. There are even some jokes about immortality! Not just depressing romance! The Cullen’s household features an artwork made up of the many graduation caps the “teenagers” of the family have accumulated over the years, from different high schools. In terms of plot and pacing, the evil vampires are also set up earlier in the film, instead of suddenly appearing out of nowhere towards the end of the book.

The best: There’s also a really cool baseball scene, where the characters wear old-timey uniforms, and kick hilariously in the air as they pitch. Awesome!

And yeah, okay, the cast is mind-blowingly attractive.

But I’m trying not to let myself forget how bad this film actually was. The acting was, for the most part, almost unwatchable. And as hilarious as the just-staring-at-each-other, not-sex-scenes-at-all scenes were, and regardless of the pretty scenery – it’s still basically putting the feminist movement back about 20 years, and pushing the teen-movie movement to ever-lower lows. We’ll just have to wait until the next film, “New Moon”, to see whether the franchise can possibly sink any lower.