Twilight
Year: 2008
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Billy Burke, Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart
Runtime: 121 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 22/04/21
Director: Catherine Hardwicke
Starring: Billy Burke, Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart
Runtime: 121 mins
BBFC: 12
Published: 22/04/21
I’m a big fan of film critic, author, and YouTuber, Lindsay Ellis and around three years ago now she made a video called “I’m Sorry Stephanie Meyer” in which she dissected her own opinions on the Twilight series, and why it was wrong for her and so many others to demonise this book series that so many held dear, and the author who created it, simply because the series was, well, Twilight. So it got me thinking about how I dissected my own opinions on Michael Bay’s Transformers films last year and ultimately came to the conclusion that they’re terrible films and probably shouldn’t be enjoyed because there is very little good about them, but I still enjoy them as goofy brainless entertainment. So if I tackle the total gender opposite that is Twilight, and take an objective viewpoint and try to separate myself from the engrained misogyny that I have, are the Twilight films actually any good? Or at the very least, can they still be enjoyable as brainless entertainment for teenage girls that ultimately didn’t deserve the criticism they received, the same way we accepted Transformers as brainless entertainment for teenage boys?
Seventeen-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves away from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), in Forks, Washington. This is the town she grew up in when she was a little girl, and her father has refused to leave since separating with Bella’s mother many years prior. Once she arrives in Forks she finds it difficult to fit in at school as she is simply seen as the ‘new toy’. All the boys want to get in her pants, all the girls want to gossip about her, and the one childhood friend she has, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), lives on a Native American settlement and doesn’t really socialise with the Forks locals. Her arrival is made even more unwelcoming for her when Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a member of the elusive Cullen family who recently moved to Forks, takes a particular dislike to her and does whatever he can to stay away from her, appearing physically ill whenever he sees or smells her.
Bella confronts Edward about his behaviour, and begins to learn that Edward is not human, but a vampire. Once his secret is unearthed, they fall in love as Edward shows Bella what life as a vampire is like, and the challenges he faces in daily life. Meanwhile there are multiple deaths happening in the areas surrounding Forks from suspected animal attacks, but when it is revealed to be a rival vampire faction, Bella’s life is put in danger and the Cullen family must protect her and the rest of Forks from these dangerous foes.
Seventeen-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves away from Phoenix, Arizona to live with her dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), in Forks, Washington. This is the town she grew up in when she was a little girl, and her father has refused to leave since separating with Bella’s mother many years prior. Once she arrives in Forks she finds it difficult to fit in at school as she is simply seen as the ‘new toy’. All the boys want to get in her pants, all the girls want to gossip about her, and the one childhood friend she has, Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), lives on a Native American settlement and doesn’t really socialise with the Forks locals. Her arrival is made even more unwelcoming for her when Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a member of the elusive Cullen family who recently moved to Forks, takes a particular dislike to her and does whatever he can to stay away from her, appearing physically ill whenever he sees or smells her.
Bella confronts Edward about his behaviour, and begins to learn that Edward is not human, but a vampire. Once his secret is unearthed, they fall in love as Edward shows Bella what life as a vampire is like, and the challenges he faces in daily life. Meanwhile there are multiple deaths happening in the areas surrounding Forks from suspected animal attacks, but when it is revealed to be a rival vampire faction, Bella’s life is put in danger and the Cullen family must protect her and the rest of Forks from these dangerous foes.
When looked at in a summary like that, Twilight’s story isn’t too bad. In fact, it does seem quite an enjoyable film that mixes elements of fantasy, horror, and romance when you lay it out in a general overview. However, once you start to dig below the surface of Twilight that the issues become apparent. Obviously, this is a review of the film and not the book, so if some of these plot issues are addressed in the book then that is irrelevant in relation to this review.
We aren’t really given any background info on the vampires or how they operate. I seem to believe this is addressed in the sequels, but this isn’t even attempted in the first film. It’s not necessarily that I take issue with the powers these vampires have because for the most part the powers showcased in Twilight are similar to vampiric powers shown in other pop culture vampire fiction. Whilst the special effects on the sparkly skin are definitely hit and miss (with the vampires often being in situations where there is clearly enough sun to make them sparkle but they aren’t), it’s not a problem that they do sparkle because vampires avoiding sunlight is a common trope, it’s just given a different spin here.
Bella does a very small amount of research on vampires but none of the research we see points to what the Cullen’s are. If the film was trying to go for a mysterious angle it doesn’t really work because it just leaves me asking so many questions relating to how they are able to survive, why they integrate themselves into society the way they do, and even how their bodily functions work at times simply due to things those characters do within the narrative.
Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the plot itself is that the villains, James (Cam Gigandet) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), don’t get any characterisation. They crop up occasionally throughout the story but we don’t know who they are or even what they want until the beginning of the third act, at which point their attention quickly turns to Bella, and then it just becomes a series of chase sequences and action scenes until the film is over. They have no depth as people, and whilst Twilight does have problems throughout the series of not giving its secondary characters enough personality, the fact that this all happens so late into the narrative feels as though Meyer wanted to have some kind of exciting climax despite not really needing one.
We aren’t really given any background info on the vampires or how they operate. I seem to believe this is addressed in the sequels, but this isn’t even attempted in the first film. It’s not necessarily that I take issue with the powers these vampires have because for the most part the powers showcased in Twilight are similar to vampiric powers shown in other pop culture vampire fiction. Whilst the special effects on the sparkly skin are definitely hit and miss (with the vampires often being in situations where there is clearly enough sun to make them sparkle but they aren’t), it’s not a problem that they do sparkle because vampires avoiding sunlight is a common trope, it’s just given a different spin here.
Bella does a very small amount of research on vampires but none of the research we see points to what the Cullen’s are. If the film was trying to go for a mysterious angle it doesn’t really work because it just leaves me asking so many questions relating to how they are able to survive, why they integrate themselves into society the way they do, and even how their bodily functions work at times simply due to things those characters do within the narrative.
Perhaps the biggest issue I have with the plot itself is that the villains, James (Cam Gigandet) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre), don’t get any characterisation. They crop up occasionally throughout the story but we don’t know who they are or even what they want until the beginning of the third act, at which point their attention quickly turns to Bella, and then it just becomes a series of chase sequences and action scenes until the film is over. They have no depth as people, and whilst Twilight does have problems throughout the series of not giving its secondary characters enough personality, the fact that this all happens so late into the narrative feels as though Meyer wanted to have some kind of exciting climax despite not really needing one.
The quality of filmmaking is a mixed bag really. There are some aspects of Twilight that functionally work very well, and then there are others that really don’t. So firstly, what doesn’t work? There’s a lot of times where the vampires move very quickly, and to illustrate this in the film they just make them blurry. It’s not very pleasing to the eye because it just looks like one big blurry streak runs across the screen when it happens, it lingers too long and it’s not smooth enough to work. This can also be attributed to the film having quite a small budget, but you then have to ask why the filmmakers didn’t just opt to have a cheaper effect that looked better in place of the ugly effect they actually use.
Secondly there’s Bella’s narration which is really spotty in its implementation. If you’re going to include character narration you really need to commit to it and use it often, Twilight uses it just a couple of times and they’re so far apart that you forget that the film ever uses the technique until you hear it and it can be quite jarring. There’s a lot of stuff that could be explained in the narration, and whilst narration is certainly not a technique I’m a big fan of, you can do some great things with it and really add depth to the story. Twilight’s narration does not do this.
Something I do really love though is Twilight’s colour palette. The whole film is bathed in a bluey purple haze and almost all the bright colours have been washed out. The few times where bright colours do come through it’s used to accentuate or draw particular attention to things. It’s genuinely really well done; however, the tone of the blues can be inconsistent at times. Some shots it’s a very deep blue and other’s it’ll be much paler. A small gripe sure, but it can be a little jarring at times to have the colour changing on a shot by shot basis.
The cinematography is very much a mixed bag. There are times where the shot is framed well, and the way it’s been edited together can be very visually engaging. The one scene that really sticks out to me here is the baseball scene. It’s easily the best scene in the film and despite having that awful CG speed running used frequently throughout it, it’s still very enjoyable. However, there are a lot of times where the camera is clearly just being held by someone and they’re moving around so much that it’s extremely distracting. Handheld camera techniques were popular around that time, but Twilight is a key example of how not to do it. It often happens at times where a stable camera would have been perfectly fine, and the camera regularly intrudes an actors space and so it becomes painfully aware you’re watching a film because the camera is abnormally close to someone’s elbow or something stupid like that.
Secondly there’s Bella’s narration which is really spotty in its implementation. If you’re going to include character narration you really need to commit to it and use it often, Twilight uses it just a couple of times and they’re so far apart that you forget that the film ever uses the technique until you hear it and it can be quite jarring. There’s a lot of stuff that could be explained in the narration, and whilst narration is certainly not a technique I’m a big fan of, you can do some great things with it and really add depth to the story. Twilight’s narration does not do this.
Something I do really love though is Twilight’s colour palette. The whole film is bathed in a bluey purple haze and almost all the bright colours have been washed out. The few times where bright colours do come through it’s used to accentuate or draw particular attention to things. It’s genuinely really well done; however, the tone of the blues can be inconsistent at times. Some shots it’s a very deep blue and other’s it’ll be much paler. A small gripe sure, but it can be a little jarring at times to have the colour changing on a shot by shot basis.
The cinematography is very much a mixed bag. There are times where the shot is framed well, and the way it’s been edited together can be very visually engaging. The one scene that really sticks out to me here is the baseball scene. It’s easily the best scene in the film and despite having that awful CG speed running used frequently throughout it, it’s still very enjoyable. However, there are a lot of times where the camera is clearly just being held by someone and they’re moving around so much that it’s extremely distracting. Handheld camera techniques were popular around that time, but Twilight is a key example of how not to do it. It often happens at times where a stable camera would have been perfectly fine, and the camera regularly intrudes an actors space and so it becomes painfully aware you’re watching a film because the camera is abnormally close to someone’s elbow or something stupid like that.
Undoubtedly the worst part of Twilight though is the dialogue and the performances. Honestly with everything else the film would have been very passable, especially as a YA adaptation. But the entire film is riddled with some truly atrocious dialogue and lazy performances.
The dialogue feels as though lines have been directly lifted from the book, and whilst that’s not always a bad thing, it’s well known that Twilight is not a particularly well written book. As such there’s a very strange shift in tone when an actor is reading a line written specifically for the film, and when they are reading something that came from the book. It’s overly eloquent without ever actually being intelligent or meaningful. It’s the kind of stuff you would find an inspirational quote page on Facebook churning out and it just sounds awful when coming out of someone’s mouth.
When you then add to this extremely wooden or lazy performances it’s a recipe for disaster. Many of the actors in this film have been great in other things, so it’s a case of bad direction. Kristen Stewart gets a lot of hate for her performance in this film and I certainly won’t defend it, but I will defend her as she has proven herself a perfectly capable actress in many other films. Unfortunately, though her cross eyed, cartoonishly orgasmic scene near the end of the film where she is supposed to be dying will never fail to make me belly laugh at just how obscenely terrible it is.
So, is Twilight good? No, nothing has changed there, it’s still bad. But is it the worst thing ever made like many made it out to be? Also no. If the dialogue and performances were a little better the film would be perfectly passable. Sure, the plot is a little silly and is clearly designed to play into teenage girl fantasies, but that’s fine! We shouldn’t hate something just because teenage girls like it (something I have been guilty of before). Twilight is very specifically aimed at nerdy teenage girls, if you aren’t part of that demographic you won’t like it. But much like Transformers, why don’t we just allow it to exist as that and let them enjoy it! As far as I’m concerned if I enjoy films where robots pee on people and there are some outrageously racist stereotypes then let the teenage girls have their sparkly vampires, I mean so long as nobody makes erotic fan fiction out of it then it's not hurting anyone right?
The dialogue feels as though lines have been directly lifted from the book, and whilst that’s not always a bad thing, it’s well known that Twilight is not a particularly well written book. As such there’s a very strange shift in tone when an actor is reading a line written specifically for the film, and when they are reading something that came from the book. It’s overly eloquent without ever actually being intelligent or meaningful. It’s the kind of stuff you would find an inspirational quote page on Facebook churning out and it just sounds awful when coming out of someone’s mouth.
When you then add to this extremely wooden or lazy performances it’s a recipe for disaster. Many of the actors in this film have been great in other things, so it’s a case of bad direction. Kristen Stewart gets a lot of hate for her performance in this film and I certainly won’t defend it, but I will defend her as she has proven herself a perfectly capable actress in many other films. Unfortunately, though her cross eyed, cartoonishly orgasmic scene near the end of the film where she is supposed to be dying will never fail to make me belly laugh at just how obscenely terrible it is.
So, is Twilight good? No, nothing has changed there, it’s still bad. But is it the worst thing ever made like many made it out to be? Also no. If the dialogue and performances were a little better the film would be perfectly passable. Sure, the plot is a little silly and is clearly designed to play into teenage girl fantasies, but that’s fine! We shouldn’t hate something just because teenage girls like it (something I have been guilty of before). Twilight is very specifically aimed at nerdy teenage girls, if you aren’t part of that demographic you won’t like it. But much like Transformers, why don’t we just allow it to exist as that and let them enjoy it! As far as I’m concerned if I enjoy films where robots pee on people and there are some outrageously racist stereotypes then let the teenage girls have their sparkly vampires, I mean so long as nobody makes erotic fan fiction out of it then it's not hurting anyone right?