Reviewed by Deborah Day
(November 2008)
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Writer: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (novel)
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli
With the film Twilight, director Catherine Hardwicke successfully captures the magic of author Stephenie Meyer's best-selling young adult series about a high school girl who discovers the love of her life and then finds out he's a vampire.
The movie opens faithfully to the book: Bella Swan, portrayed by Kristen Stewart (Into the Wild), leaves her flaky mom in Phoenix to join her police chief father, Charlie (Billy Burke), in dreary Forks, Washington. The teenager must adjust to life at a new school and all its tedious social challenges, while also forging a stronger bond with her emotionally tentative father. Charlie reintroduces her to Native American father-and-son Billy (Gil Birmingham) and Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) of the Quileute tribe in nearby La Push, and the duo later play pivotal roles in exposing the region's vampire history to Bella.
Students at the small-town high school immediately confront Bella with her newcomer status. The introverted outsider has nowhere to hide when her curious classmates force her integration into their social circles. Fans of the book will delight in the cinematic introduction of their favorite characters, including Bella's school chums Mike, Jessica, Eric and Angela (Michael Welch, Anna Kendrick, Justin Chon and Christian Serratos, respectively). No characters, however, evoke stronger audience response than the Cullen family, first with the cafeteria-based rundown of the vampire siblings - Rosalie, Emmet, Alice, Jasper and Edward (Nikki Reed, Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Jackson Rathbone and Robert Pattinson, respectively) - and later with the appearance of their golden-haired patriarch, Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli).
Bella first takes note of her fated mate, Edward, in the cafeteria scene, puzzled by his expression as he steals glances at her. Readers of the book know that he's trying (and failing) to read her mind; Bella, however, thinks he dislikes her, which she believes is confirmed when they are partnered in Biology class and he seems desperate to distance himself from her and bolts from the classroom at the bell. Her beautiful lab-mate disappears for days, but when he returns, his countenance has changed significantly and his attentions are cordial - even flattering.
Bella notices something strange about her new friend when he leaps between her and a van destined to smash her and stops the vehicle with the palm of his hand. From there, Bella must unravel the mystery of Edward and his ethereal family and confront the dangers of knowing the Cullens too well, including a run-in with a trio of nomadic - and lethal - vampires.
Stewart infuses Bella with a quiet social ineptitude appropriate to the literary character created by Meyer; while Pattinson also lives up to the promise of moody, but devastatingly handsome, vampire Edward. The actors leave plenty of room for growth in their roles, which will come in handy when the inevitable sequels are filmed; in fact, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg is reportedly at work on scripts for books two and three of the series, New Moon and Eclipse.
Meyer should be pleased with the work of Rosenberg and Hardwicke in the translation of her words to film - the screenwriter and director have been largely true to the source material, and fans of the books will reward the filmmakers with box office figures to rival bigger sci-fi franchises. Perhaps then the Twilight franchise itself will be rewarded with bigger budgets for subsequent films to pursue even more ambitious special effects and further titillate the squealing masses of Twilight fans. -MPM
Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment.
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