Animal Instincts

Rating: Null/10 (16 September 2014)

Like all films in its franchise, "Twilight: New Moon" is about sex, celibacy and the art of respectfully losing your virginity....to vampires and werewolves. In this instalment we have Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a young woman on the cusp of adulthood, bleeding in front of a group of vampires. Overwhelmed by a desire to consume, these vampires lustfully lunge at Bella. They're stopped by Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a gentlemanly alpha-vamp who orders all vampires to stay well clear of Bella. Edward leaves as well.
As a girl must deliberate before she consummates, passion must wait. Bella thus spends "Moon's" second half in a state of depression, missing the men, vampires and outright rapists who once pined for her tantalising body. Pretty soon she's channelling her pent up sexual energy into various thrill seeking activities, hanging around dangerous locations and topless bad boys. They want her, she wants them, but are they right for her? Who to choose? With so many penises in the world, poor Bella faces an existential crisis!
Also facing an existential crisis is Edward. When false news that Bella has died reaches him, Edward resolves to commit suicide, a gesture which speaks to his all consuming love for her. Of course when news of Edward's faithfulness reaches back to Bella, she ends her philandering. She knows, finally, which man is right for her. "I want to protect you," Edward says, wrapping the petite Bella in his gigantic shoulders, "you're the reason I stay alive". Bella melts. The couple propose and plan a wedding.
It's easy to laugh at the Twilight saga's themes of courtly love and its attempts at rekindling the chaste, romantic fantasies of yesteryear. But in an age when the sweetest thing you can tell a girl is "I haven't needed pornography since I met you", the puritanism of the Twilight Saga is almost endearing.
7/10 – See Stewart in the underrated "The Yellow Handkerchief" (2008).