Dryvetyme Onlyne

Twilight
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Screenplay: Melissa Rosenberg
Based upon the novel by Stephanie Meyer

I am the first one to proclaim that a movie will always pale in comparison to the book that serves as its source material. It’s not that cinema is an inferior medium, but more that it’s nearly impossible for the silver screen to catch every possible nuance and project every literary device that springs from the printed page. Do you think I’m overstating things? Far from it – there is a six-hour version of Pride And Prejudice (starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy) created by the BBC back in the ‘80s and, while it is beloved by many, hardcore Austen fans will still be able to point out some minor deficiency in translation.

Thus, much like the obstacles that have been leapt in the past decade when bringing to theaters the dense, rich fantasy worlds contained within Lord Of The Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Harry Potter series, the people who chose to adapt the upstart, best-selling teen drama Twilight into a film had some tough decisions to make. The novel itself has faced some criticism, especially in regards to the quality of the writing at the compositional level, but what has driven the book’s tremendous fame in popular circles is that the core of Stephanie Meyer’s story is replete with classic, archetypal literary themes that are familiar, compelling, and attractive to readers. World literature, theater, and cinema are filled with tales about forbidden love, the pains of adolescence, and the struggles of starting over in a new location, not to mention just learning how to love in general.

So, in that regard, Twilight the movie already had some quality material with which to work, but the challenge remained as to how to make the story marketable and interesting to those of us who have not read the novel (much less the rest of the four-book series). Moreover, the concern that I had entering the theater would be whether or not the movie would even be interesting to people who did not fit in with project’s overwhelmingly teenaged female demographic. Surprisingly, exiting the theater two hours later, I must say that I was quite entertained by this movie. The screenwriter correctly elected to focus much of her attention on building, fomenting, and encouraging the chemistry-laden dynamic between the two protagonists, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), as opposed to indulging in deeply developing the character of each member of the supporting cast.

In short, Edward is a nearly one-hundred-year-old vampire, trapped at the age of 17, who lives with a small family of vampires who refuse to drink the blood of humans, selecting the blood of animals instead (“vampire vegetarians,” according to the movie). Bella is an actual teenager who has recently moved from Phoenix, AZ to the rural community of Forks, WA to live with her police chief father while her newly remarried mother travels with the new husband (a minor league baseball player). The story traces how Edward and Bella begin their infatuation and move into developing a deep love for one another, complete with Edward saving Bella’s life from a rampaging, “evil” vampire that actually does eat human blood. However, the core conflict revolves around Edward’s vampire nature battling his love for Bella: not only does Edward feels addicted to Bella’s blood at the expense of his love for her heart, but Bella desperately wants to become a vampire so as to spend eternity with Edward, though he cannot convince her that a vampire’s life is not a pleasant one.

In one sense, the stilted, awkward, and occasionally quite cheesy dialogue in Twilight proved to be a distinct turn-off (much less cause for a host of cynical guffaws), as it seems to be scaled directly at the hearts and emotions (not to mention pocketbooks) of teenaged girls and their optimistic, unrealistic expectations of love. But running counter to such revoltingly sappy conversation is the fact that interactions between any given pair of teenagers attracted to each other are often really stilted, awkward and cheesy. I’m not sure about you, but I don’t think that many of us were suave, smooth, and sophisticated in the ways of love when in High School. Moreover, aren’t teenagers in love often naïve in the ways of the heart? Shouldn’t we want the characters in our escapist fantasy fiction to project these feelings of an unquenchable love that conquers all, no matter the situation?

This is why the novel has become so ridiculously adored and why the movie works on most levels – it tugs at the heartstrings of anyone willing to set aside their realism, pessimism, and/or cynicism and enjoy the story for what it is. In the deep places in our souls, most of us want to hear about two people whom, despite all logic and every physical and societal impediment, find a way to first fall in and then stay in love. Why else do cinematic love stories of most stripes, whether Casablanca, When Harry Met Sally, or Notting Hill, (not to mention literary works like Odyssey or Romeo And Juliet) have such devoted followings? It’s because they display the world as we would like it to be.

Twilight, while still markedly filled with tacky, melodramatic one-lines from Bella (“Death is easy, peaceful. Life is harder.”) and creepy-yet-sappy conversation between Edward and Bella (“Your blood is like heroin to me!”), is a workable love story, whose cheesy moments are appropriately cheesy. The vampire-loves-a-human plot “twist” isn’t really that interesting, as it’s more of a plot vehicle that sets it a bit apart from other stories of its kind. Also, the acting itself, while severely over-the-top and grandiloquent, was believable for the most part, primarily because the actors were able to give the viewers exactly what they desired: two teenagers who are impossibly in love for all the wrong reasons, yet survive every trial and tribulation because their love is strong and real. And, in the end, who doesn’t want to see love win?

[Editor’s Note: Wow – I just gave a cliché-laden, teen-centric love story a positive review. I think I may have made myself gag a bit.]