Twilight

(2008)

Directed by

Catherine Hardwicke

Review by Zach Saltz

Latest Vampire Flick Has Absurd Bite

Which is more tragic: the plight of the vampire, doomed to an eternal existence in a dreary Romanian castle where the fashion is drab and the listless dinner menu is drabber, or that of the American teenager, ridden with raging hormones and protruding acne, suppressing momentary happiness when angst is chic – all in pants three sizes too small?

Twilight represents the schizophrenic marriage of the sinister vampire and the gloomy teenager, in a sort of Nosferatu-meets-Mean Girls production that, for a movie marketed to teenagers, is surprisingly dull and formless.  There is not a single explosion in this movie, nor is there unintelligible wailing and screaming as an excuse for a soundtrack (do today’s teens really want to hear Debussy’s Clair de Lune?), and the stunning sweaty teen leads stay surprisingly clothed throughout the entire production (then again, removing attire three sizes too small can be a real pain, just ask Tony Gwynn).  Indeed, the word vampire is not mentioned for the first hour of the motion picture; it is as though in trying to build suspense of the great unknown terror, a la Jaws, the filmmakers here are merely content to present a rudimentary, albeit fluffy courtship between the 17-year-old new girl and town and her 108-year-old love interest (don’t worry, he has been preserved and undead for a good 91 of those years).

First, a confession: I have never read any of the much-heralded books in the series by Stephanie Meyer.  This is because (1) I had not heard of the Twilight series until roughly three weeks ago because (1a) I actually do live in a cave, and (2) I am not a 14-year-old girl.  I am also not a particular fan of vampire fiction (or non-fiction, for that matter), but I will hand it to Miss Meyer: She has, in effect, done what Dan Brown did with The Da Vinci Code and created an entire genre unto itself – emo teen vampire romance, or ETVR for short.  I spent most of my time in high school making fun of these dweebs without realizing that, had my skin been whiter and my brain been bigger, I could have capitalized the propensity they had to obsess on things like Twilight and spend hoards of money to maintain the ETVR lifestyle.  Those kids must have had wealthy parents; after all, who has that kind of money to wear new leather trench coats and low slung drainpipes each week?

The film stars Kirsten Stewart as Bella Swan, who has the name either a ballerina or a low rent Grand Ole Opry belle from Nashville.  She is emo – so emo that she lives in Phoenix and remains as pale as snow.  She drives a nasty old truck given to her by her distant father after she finds herself in Forks, Washington (the dinner metaphor is not funny).  She meets a lot of weird friends, including social guru Eric Yorkie, a cross between Ben Fong-Torres from Almost Famous and Kojack.  But the 25-year-old-actor-playing-a-high-schooler that catches her eye is dreamy Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who resides with the most incestuous family of vampires this side of The Hotel New Hampshire.  He drives a sweet two-door Volvo (the only one of its kind made after 1974) and looks like he’s in severe pain whenever he talks to her.  It’s not that he’s trying to build up the confidence to ask her to the prom – he has to resist the temptation to suck her intoxicating blood.

Now what is so appealing about this girl’s blood?  It couldn’t be that great – she doesn’t really exercise or get around much, and based on the color of her skin, her blood doesn’t get around much inside her either.  You see, blood is just the subtext: the movie is really talking about sex, and how high school males must resist the temptation to engage in it, no matter how irresistible the unsucked “blood” of a high school girl may be.  Here is some illustrative sample dialogue:

                Edward: I could always make you dance.

                Bella: I’m not scared of you.

                Edward: Well you really shouldn’t have said that.

Sex – I mean, sucking blood is the enemy here, which is why Edward and his family have taken to only devouring animals rather than people.  This makes them “vegetarians” rather than “carnivores” though vegetarians don’t eat animals and carnivores don’t eat humans.  But no matter – the movie’s sound ecological message rings true, and as in Wall E, the film’s promotion of environmental consciousness is so embedded in the story, it’s barely noticeable (not that it should be for heaven’s sake).

Twilight has a couple of good scenes.  When Edward takes Bella over for dinner at his place, it’s a funny sort-of reversal of Guess of Who’s Coming to Dinner (perhaps retitled Guess Who’s Going to Be Dinner).  And I was particularly fond of the good vampire vs. bad vampire baseball game (reminiscent of the “Take me Out to the Holodeck” episode of Deep Space Nine when Sisko and the crew square off on the diamond against the Vulcans).  But overall, the picture was messy, had too many characters, and the scenes that were supposed to be chalk full of unadulterated teen lust came off as a bad rip off of Anne Rice and the latest Abercrombie and Fitch ad.  Twilight will appeal to those who expect a good, faithful treatment of the book, but for those seeking an intelligent film dealing with the widespread calamity of teen vampirity, one may wish to remain undead for another few centuries.

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