Twilight -- A Review

Rating: 7/10 (31 October 2009)

Twilight does not have much of a plot and yet it is a pretty decent film. The main reason why I say this is because the on screen chemistry between Bella Swann (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) is positively electric. Kristen Stewart does a great job as Bella Swan who loves the vampire Edward Cullen to the point of obsession. You can see her feelings for Edward beaming from her face. In fact, everyone of her reactions from beginning to end comes across as wholly sincere. Now some have criticized this film for bad acting, but really if you compared Kristen Stewart's performance to that of Drew Barrymore, Kate Hudson, Tatum O'Neal, and Mandy Moore, Stewart puts all those women in chick flicks to shame. As for Robert Pattinson, he too is brilliant as the socially awkward and troubled Edward Cullen who feels he has a terrible secret to hide. Roger Ebert observed in his review that this film is really a metaphor about a teenager who discovers how hard abstinence is. He is right, but Pattinson's character is more complex than that. Edward Cullen is also ashamed of being a vampire, because society sees vampires as monsters, and he tries repeatedly to appear normal in front of Bella Swan only to fail every time. Cullen is a repressed vampire much in the same way as some people are repressed homosexuals, and Pattinson does a really good job in showing that side of Edward.
Now the film is not perfect. After Bella discovers who Edward is, the film seems to run out of ideas and has to tack on an unnecessary scene with bad-ass vampires at the end. But in its presentation of a love story, this film is unique. I personally have never seen a love story involving thanatophiles before and presented with such sincerity that you can easily take it for the real thing. I was personally curious at one point about whether there was an off-screen romance between Pattison and Stewart (there wasn't). To say that this film is worth watching would be an understatement. Sadly, if the plot could only have been improved, Twilight would have stood a good chance of becoming a masterpiece in addition to a cult favourite (which undoubtedly it has become).