Edward Cullen and Kristen Stewart

Rating: 7/10 (6 September 2009)

I watched this film just after reading the books (four books in four days, nonstop) so all the details were very fresh in my head. And I definitely liked the film but something in it disturbed me, I tried to figure out what exactly it was but couldn't. So I watched it again trying not to get engrossed in it; it was not easy but I did it. This is what I got: I've watched a lot of films - book's adaptations- and understood that it's almost impossible to make a perfect script for a 2-hour movie from a several hundred page book. "Twilight" film script is far from perfect but frankly speaking I didn't expect it to be perfect. So that definitely wasn't the reason of my annoyance.
I like the whole cast, especially the Cullens family: the protective father of the family Dr.Carlisle, the loving mother Esme, beautiful and furious Rosalie (though I pictured her a little different when reading the book), strong and funny Emmett (more funny in the book ), a little too restrained among humans Jasper, charming Alice and Edward, of course. If Edward had been cast wrong it would've ruined the film. So many thanks to Catherine Hardwicke - as I know there were a lot of actors in the queue for Edward - for her patience and right choice. And kudos to Robert Pattinson for his Edward! I forgot that that was Robert Pattinson playing Edward after a few seconds of his first appearance on screen. I didn't see Robert, I saw Edward with all his emotions - from embarrassment and hunger for Bella's blood to his passion and tenderness for her- on his face. He is really a good actor; it seems he isn't acting , he is living his character's life.
I like the music very much, it creates proper mood from the first notes up to the end.
I don't like the vampires' make-up though. It's really "half-kabuki half-transvestite" as Robert described it in some interview (a very pointed description!). But it was not the bright lipstick or the abrupt boundary between the snow-white face and the normal neck of Edward or Carlisle that disturbed me. So what? And suddenly I realized that it was Kristen Stewart's Bella. It WAS NOT Bella from the book. Kristen performed three emotions: boredom, irritation and total absence of any emotions with her mouth open all the time. Where is Bella's love for Edward? I didn't see a single moment when she was almost fainting with love hearing his voice or looking at his eyes. Kristen's Bella is strong (it seemed that it was not her who needed help in the sequence with four scoundrels but them - her voice was absolutely confident and she already started to punch them), she is not awkward (as in the book), always demanding something from Edward, with strange twitch of her face and sounds from her throat (which reminded me of some of her public interviews). So I saw Kristen, not Bella.
I can understand the disappointment of those people who went to the cinema to watch a Vampire film, because it is NOT a vampire film at all, it's a love story with vampires as a part of it. And I like it.