TWILIGHT (2008): Generation Y Dracula
December 26th 2008 08:14
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After her mother starts a life with a new partner, Twilight’s delicate brunette heroine Bella (Kristen Stewart, perhaps best known as Jodie Foster’s diabetic daughter in David Fincher’s Panic Room) moves in with her dad, the local sheriff (Billy Burke), to a small town of Forks, Washington - a cold, wet and depressing place where twilight seems to last all day long. She causes a social sensation at school, but has eyes only for Edward (British actor Robert Pattinson, who played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter movies), a predictably brooding, mysterious, dark and handsome boy, who apparently cannot stand her – the perfect package and every teenage girl’s dream challenge it seems. Edward’s weirdness ratio exceeds that normally exhibited by teenage hunks however, and our heroine follows her own gut feelings and diligently researches his superhero properties…
Bella meets her dad's Native American friends Billy and Jacob Black (Gil Birmingham and Taylor Lautner)
The town is located near an Indian reserve, and the locals have some helpful legends about “the cold ones”, who Bella’s Native American friends don’t like much and keep warning her against. Nothing can stand in the way of an epic supernatural-taboo-desire story though, and Twilight faithfully (or should I say unashamedly?) delivers the scale and intensity of first young love. And it is soooooooo romantic, like. So much so, it topped the box office in USA, UK and didn’t do badly in Australia, either. The scenes of our lovebirds frolicking in nature echo Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) more than anything else, and the sparkly skin motif adds to the ever-expanding vampire lore, strangely channeling David Bowie in The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976).
Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) bond with nature and each other in Twilight
While the movie adequately captures teenage insecurities and the complexity of parent-child relations in the background, and is indeed pretty to look at as the two leads mirror each other in their dark good looks, no film involving those fangy creatures of paradox is safe from the ridiculous. Twilight indulges in the cheese factor by offering us priceless scenes of vampires playing baseball with balletic grace (of course), cooking Italian meals, and in-jokes about playing with your food. Har har.
Twilight is based on popular novels by Stephenie Meyer, of which there are four so far, and the sequel, New Moon, is already in pre-production, to be directed by Chris Weitz of About a Boy (2002) and The Golden Compass (2007) fame. Weitz was also heavily involved in the creation of a certain unforgettable cinematic offering called American Pie, so the results could be (here’s hoping!) quite unexpected.
Review by Patricia Bieszk
© Copyright P. Bieszk 2008
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