Review of Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight
Despite Robert Pattinson Fanfare, Vampire Film Falls Flat
Dec 3, 2008
Twilight, the new teen vampire romance flick directed by Catherine Hardwicke, is based on the book written by Stephanie Meyer. Both the book and the film are about the baffling romance between an innocent human girl and a hunky male vampire, and their shared anguish over the difficulties of their love. Meyers claims that the idea for this story came to her in a dream, in which an “average girl” and a “fantastically beautiful, sparkly” vampire discuss their forbidden romance in a meadow.
This review is solely about the film, which, at two hours and 22 minutes, is an agonizing experience of teenage angst and inane high school dialogue on the silver screen.
Twilight's Plot
Kristen Stewart stars as Bella (innocent human girl) and Robert Pattison is Edward (hunky male vampire). The rest of the cast is fairly unremarkable, as is the acting all round. Whether this is due to the actual abilities of the cast or the quality of the material they were given to work with is uncertain.
This bland assemblage of characters wanders through and around the story of Bella, a teenage girl who moves to the dim, wet, rainforested West Coast to live with her father, a cop. Bella is the new girl at school, and a variety of teen stereotypes (the geeks, the art freaks, the heart-of-gold-buried-on-the-inside jocks) show unsubtle and inexplicable adoration towards her within five minutes of her appearance.
Then she meets Edward, her lab partner in biology. There is much heavy, angstful staring and showing of pouty lower lip, after which Edward rushes out and stays away from school for several days.
This is, apparently, the beginning of their uncontrollable raging love for one another. From this point on the film centers on their romance and Edward’s fight to control himself around Bella. At some point Bella figures out that Edward is a vampire (the outrageously pale face may have been a clue), and they talk about this. A lot. Edward is, of course, a “vegetarian vampire” in that he drinks only animal blood and struggles to ignore his killing instincts.
Issues, Issues and More Issues with Catherine Hardwicke's Twilight
The movie consists mainly of heavy breathing, dusky emo stares and pouty lower lips. Now and then a little dialogue creeps in, something along the lines of, “Bella, our love can never be,” or “I’m not afraid of you, Edward.” To which Edward wittily replies, “You should be.”
The film is choppy and difficult to follow much of the time. It’s as though individual scenes were drawn randomly from a hat and the movie stitched together in that arbitrary order.
Part of the trouble is the complete lack of character development. Bella is a teenager, has divorced parents, drives a truck and knows how to do a Google search. That is the approximate extent of all knowledge about her. Edward is a vampire who sparkles, has bad hair and loves Debussy. Chemistry between the two characters is nonexistent. It appears as though two cardboard cutouts have been animated to stare and breath heavily at one another while spewing clichés. There is no explanation for their feelings toward one another other than that the movie script tells them to be in love.
What Is a Vampire?
It also doesn’t help that Twilight has thrown out every piece of vampire lore ever created. In Twilight, vampires can go out in the sun, they simply glitter like worn-out tinsel. They integrate themselves into society (they go to high school for all of eternity), their reflections are clearly visible in mirrors and they have no discernible fangs. There is no word on vampires’ feelings towards wooden stakes, crosses or holy water, though they do enjoy classical music and fancy cars.
The only concession to vampiric tradition is the creatures’ pale faces. (With the addition of gelled hair and dark lipstick – perhaps they are not vampires, but very dreary mimes.) They also suck blood. Of course, so do leeches, mosquitoes, ticks, fleas and lampreys.
After learning all this, the movie asks viewers to believe that these “creatures of the night” are perilous, full of deadly urges. Edward sparkles. Is he a vampire or a My Little Pony?
In the end, Twilight takes the ever fascinating subject of vampires, sucks out all the mystery and darkness, douses it in body glitter and beats it to undeath with a spoon. This film is an appalling waste of money and time, and will doubtless have Dracula turning in his coffin.
