Is this film the cure for insomnia?

Rating: 3/10 (25 March 2020)

This film was based on a series of "best seller" books about the romance between a vampire and a young human. I never read the books (nor do I intend to) to know what they are like, and I am willing to not talk about them, but if Edward and Bella's love story was supposed to be epic, something didn't work in this film. Despite this, the film was a box office champion, teenagers eagerly consumed it, the studio rubbed their hands in satisfaction and everyone was happy.
The plot is easy to summarize. Isabella Swan is a girl who has just moved in with her father in Forks (curious name), a small town near the Canadian border in Washington state. The city is horrible for a man like me, used to the sun and heat of Southern Europe: almost permanent rain or fog and a humidity capable of growing moss behind my ears. There, she meets friends from the past like Jake, from a native tribe nearby, and meets Edward, a strange schoolmate. Soon it becomes evident that the two feel something strong when they are close and that Edward has something different, visible in his cold skin, eyes that change color, unusual speed and strength ... he is a vampire.
The problem with this film is not that it is aimed at a teen audience, but its bland history and lifeless characters. The way the film was made took away all the involvement, and it unfolds without us feeling connected to what we are seeing. This, for me, is difficult to understand if the source material was good and the premises of the story told are excellent: adolescent and passionate love, supernatural creatures, the problems of adolescence, adaptation difficulties ... there was a lot to work with and good chances of developing a deep and engaging story. Quite frankly! We had stories made with much more fragile premises - Harry Potter is an example - but that gave rise to wonderful books and films. It is something that can only be understood by the imbecility of the director, Catherine Hardwicke (who definitely has no way of making this type of films) and the screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg.
Personally, I think there were also some casting errors that didn't help the film. Kristen Stewart is a weak actress with no presence, or at least she was here, and the same can be said of a dull Robert Pattinson, who seems to be more dead than his character. Both were poor casting choices. Better than them, Taylor Lautner is more intense and palatable, but he couldn't save the film.
For some reason I have only now been able to see this film in its entirety. It was not because I was virtually quarantined at home because of a virus, but simply because I fell asleep deeply in all previous attempts to see it in full. And I'm not even that guy who always falls asleep in front of the TV! It is a boring and dead film, compared to dozens of other teen films that involve the supernatural.