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Page to Screen by Claire E. Gross For anyone not familiar with Twilight (are you out there?), it all starts when Bella Swan moves to the rainiest, cloudiest city in the continental U.S. to live with her father. There she meets brooding, beautiful Edward Cullen, one of the five adopted children of the town doctor. Edward reacts to Bella’s arrival at the high school by storming from the room and then making a habit of saving her life. Turns out he’s a vampire (along with his sibs), and Bella smells just delicious. It’s torture to Edward, who drinks only animal — not human — blood (like eating only tofu your whole life, he tries to explain), but he’s fascinated by his inability to read her mind (he can read everyone else’s), and the two soon fall into the love that dare not progress much beyond handholding and smoldering gazes. A tacked-on subplot involving non-“vegetarian” vampires who fixate on Bella ensures an adrenaline-filled ending to the novel. The book spawned three sequels and a fan-following of “Twilighters” and even “Twi-moms,” and now there is the movie, feverishly anticipated and dissected long before the first trailer hit the screen. The film is impressively faithful to the book; despite some necessary elisions, there are few outright changes, most of those mere exaggerations or simplifications. (And the occasional ill-advised ad lib: just whose bright idea was the line, delivered when Edward gives Bella a high-speed piggyback ride up a mountain, “You better hold on tight, Spider Monkey”?) Bella’s perspective remains the filter for the story, preserving Edward’s oh-so-sexy inscrutability, and early intercut scenes of vampire killings ramp up the suspense while leaving the rare newcomer to the saga tantalizingly in the dark as to the Cullens’ guilt or innocence. Unfortunately, the movie spends too much time on the conflict between the good and bad vampires, simply because that’s where the majority of the concrete plot points lie. The romantic development is then somewhat rushed, a choice that will not sit well with Meyer’s fans, who definitely did not throng to the theaters to see Edward and main villain James fling each other around a ballet studio. Bella (played by Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) move too quickly from intrigue to conflict to passion, and the acceleration accentuates the more stalker-ish elements of Edward’s devotion — though Pattinson’s much-advertised choice to play Edward as manic-depressive makes the behavior seem organic to the character, if romantically dubious. The greater problem is keeping the story credible. Hardwicke makes a concerted effort to present the book’s many genre elements — fantasy, horror, epic romance, and realism — within a dreamlike atmosphere where their disparities seem more artistic than jarring. The picturesque cinematography and portentious score do their part, injecting notes of mystery into every mundane school scene so that the vampire revelation won’t seem quite so out of place. Still, at moments of high drama, they go too far, with the camera swooping in, up, and around to dizzying effect and the music sounding as if a cloud of darkness is about to engulf the earth as Edward reveals that . . . his skin sparkles in the sun. (Really? That was all? Sparkly skin? What’ll play when James shows up, the 1812 Overture?) But the movie doesn’t always take itself so seriously, and the amount of intentional humor injected into the story is its most welcome trait. Bella and Edward’s first meeting is hilarious, particularly for those in the know (a.k.a. the majority of the audience), as Edward scowls, glares, looks vaguely sick to his stomach, and dashes from the room. In each early encounter, Hardwicke plays standard teen misfires against the gothic proportions of this particular situation to tap into the universalities of fumbling first love. Even as Edward develops into a viable romantic interest, his intense mood swings, outdated social inclinations, and general unfamiliarity with human interaction provide a veneer of levity that keeps the movie from completely devolving into melodrama. There’s also some unintentional humor: Edward’s faster-than-sight leaping from tree to tree as he confronts Bella with the revelation that he’s a vampire is an oddly Puck-ish use of special effects . . . and just plain B-movie silly. In Meyer’s novel, the characters (rather than the plot) take center stage; thus it is a boon that the actors are the movie’s greatest strength, lending depth and nuance to a script — and story — that is shaped by broad strokes. Of Bella’s school friends, Anna Kendrick as Jessica is notable, playing the friendliness and the jealousy with hints of insecurity that make the character entirely recognizable. Of the Cullens, less developed in the film script, Emmett bursts from the screen with an imposing physical presence but few words; Alice, Rosalie, and Carlisle are spot-on but underused; and Jasper is mostly played for laughs as the perpetually frightened-looking clan member. As future werewolf love interest Jacob, Taylor Lautner radiates good nature, unthreatening interest, and puppyish friendship, plus just the right amount of outsider maturity. Jacob barely appears in this movie, but his few scenes make a convincing argument for his ability to carry the action should a sequel be filmed (and there seems no question that one will). Rereading the book, it struck me that of all the characters, Edward and Bella are actually the least developed: he’s tortured and perfect, she’s accommodating and clumsy — end of story. Pattinson and Stewart do a laudable job of imbuing their characters with additional small foibles and mannerisms that make them, well, human. Stewart plays Bella with a natural physicality, whether she’s tripping over a crack in the sidewalk on her way to the car, sharing an awkward moment with her father (a quietly poignant Billy Burke), or waiting, breathless, for Edward’s kiss. She’s perfected the soulful, longing gaze, but she also brings a warmth to the character, making Bella’s constant need to please others believable. Pattinson’s Edward is stormy, intense, and disarmingly gauche; the actor plays him as completely unprepared for the demands and delights of love. The result is a more nuanced hero than that of the novel—truly an accomplishment. The chemistry between the two is both crackling and somehow wistful; the physically romantic scenes (chaste but yearning — the book, after all, dwelt for pages on each hard-won kiss), to which they bring a depth of emotion, are among the film’s most memorable. Twilight was not a perfect book, and it’s not a perfect movie, but fundamentals of the adaptation — an addictive wish-fulfillment plot arc, a heady romance, and above all strong performances — are solidly in place. Meyer relied on a few too many romance genre clichés in shaping protagonists — Edward’s frequent unilateral decisions for Bella’s “own good,” Bella’s eternal acquiescence and physical vulnerability — and in combination with the predator/prey sexual dynamics of the vampire story genre, the power imbalance prompted a fair amount of adult anxiety about just what messages impressionable young readers were absorbing between the lines. But Twilight is escapist fantasy, after all, unconcerned with subtext and message and gender politics. Those discomfited by the misogynistic undertones of the book, a genre pitfall neither Meyer nor Hardwicke did much to surmount, will feel the same about the movie, but the legions of fans who are in it for pure fun won’t care in the slightest.
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