Twilight (2008)

June 02, 2009

DVD, Seattle, WA

*** / ****

By Scott Muoio

Twilight is a crowd pleaser. It is a film that takes an established mythology, tweaks it, and then embellishes our pre-conceived notions with a colorful world of teases, loose ends, and angsty teenage sentiment. Though their stories have little in common, Twilight is like a hyper-stylized Harry Potter with vampires instead of wizards traipsing a world we’ve known for ages and bettered by a modern sheen of drawn colors and top-notch computer generated graphics.

The plot of Twilight involves the beautiful yet misunderstood new girl in town, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her forbidden romance with a 100 year-old vampire in a teenager’s body named Edward (Robert Pattinson), who cleverly looks like an emo James Dean. Indeed, one glance at Edward’s pompadour and family brood and this teenage girl is hooked. Too bad his vampiric tendencies make him want to suck her blood and tear her to shreds even as his heart pitter-patters with the pangs of love. What we get instead of carnage is numerous scenes of the two trading glances from afar, breathless whispers when they’re close, and a nice handful of supporting youthful characters that perfectly capture the many nuances of teenage politics, stereotypes, and emotional longing. Edward may be a 100 year-old vampire but like everyone in Twilight, he is a teenager first, and that makes all the difference.

Twilight succeeds as a modern MTV style Nosferatu meets Romeo and Juliet because it expertly earmarks all the necessary classic clichés of a riveting teen romance. Indeed, all the shades of forbidden love, longing stares, parental gymnastics, and a timeless sense of teenage urgency are on full display. And most importantly Robert Pattinson is a male lead good enough to sell the whole shebang as serious melodrama.

Pattinson under acts his character just enough to give him mystery without being a complete enigma, not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination. No doubt Pattinson is the heart and soul of Twilight, a deceptively handsome fella who takes a bad boy outside with a tender inside and updates it for the new millennium. Even when silly dialogue, gratuitous action scenes, and a lousy, unnecessary fight scene threaten to tip the apple cart, Pattinson throws off a cool, troubled glance and the whole thing gets brought back home. The expression, “the next James Dean” may get thrown around a lot but Pattinson earns it with his Twilight performance.

Certainly Twilight has a few clunky elements (the climax is particularly silly) but between the expert casting, perfect eye for teenage detail, reverence for vampire lore, ability to elevate clichés with clever embellishments, and brilliantly poignant and sequel enticing denouement Twilight is one of the most entertaining teenage dramas since 10 Things I Hate About You introduced us to Heath Ledger. And like Ledger, I do suspect we will see big things from Pattinson sooner rather than later.

Director: Catherine Hardwicke

Producer: Mark Morgan, Greg Mooradian, Wuck Godfrey

Writer: Stephenie Meyer (Novel), Melissa Rosenberg (Screenplay)

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

Original Music: Carter Burwell

Cinematographer: Elliott Davis

Editor: Nancy Richardson

Copyright 2009, Scott Muoio and Undependent Media. You may link to this review but may not reproduce it in full for your own means.