Film Review: Dangerous romance works in 'Twilight' : GoMemphis.com

Not being a teenage girl, I feel somewhat unqualified to review "Twilight," the breathlessly anticipated film version of the first in the series of romantic vampire novels by Stephenie Meyer that has become a sensation among the post-Miley Cyrus, presorority rush set.

If I were a teenage girl, my review might consist of one emphatic word: SHRIEK. That was the favored response to the film at a Tuesday night preview screening at the Malco Paradiso, where the estrogenated crowd greeted not just blood-addicted heartthrob Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) but even the opening credits with the glass-threatening high notes one associates with concert footage of the Beatles.

Audible sighs, nervous laughter and faux swooning also were part of the offscreen behavior. Of course, these girls -- self-conscious and hip to their own sense of drama and pop-culture community -- were showing off for each other as much as expressing their yearning for the eternally unavailable Edward. But their expressions were sincere.

A possible boon to proponents of high-school abstinence pledges as well as a canny expression of the sexual fears and yearnings of young women, "Twilight" -- which reportedly is quite faithful to the novel -- documents the love of the new girl in school, pretty Bella Swan (what a name!), played by Kristen Stewart, for the even more beautiful Edward Cullen, a 17-going-on-forever vampire with pale skin, red lips, sculpted features and moussed hair.

For the right age group, Edward is a dream date. He is somewhat epicene in appearance but virile in reality: He can crush metal in his bare hands. He is sensitive and cultured: In the multilevel modern woodland home of picture windows and Inuit art he shares with other "good" vampires, he listens to Debussy. Most important, he represents the ultimate symbol of both safe and dangerous sex -- he's the desirable good boy at school as well as the desirable bad boy who cuts class.

"I'm the world's most dangerous predator," he warns Bella. "I was designed to kill." Therefore, he can never allow his (blood)lust to overcome his reason; he can never consummate his romance with Bella in the vampiric way that would most please him because he might get carried away -- there might be unfortunate consequences for Bella.

Thus, this romance -- at least as it is presented in this first movie of what presumably will become a series -- will exist always in a state of sweet anticipation. When Edward (framed against a stuffed owl, like Norman Bates in "Psycho") gets his first close look at Bella in biology class, he covers his mouth with his hand -- the vampire equivalent of an excited adolescent hiding his lap with a schoolbook in a "Porky's" film. "I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life," says Edward, the embodiment of both heroic chastity and the thrill of hopeless sexual tension. (The audience moaned with joy when he added: "So the lion fell in love with the lamb.")

"Twilight" was directed by Catherine Hardwicke, a specialist in conflicted teens whose films include "Thirteen," "The Lords of Dogtown" and "The Nativity Story," another supernatural love yarn inspired by a best-seller (the New Testament). Several other key creators also are female, including screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, editor Nancy Richardson and costume designer Wendy Chuck; Hardwicke's most valuable collaborator, however, may have been cinematographer Elliot Davis, who captures the prehistoric fairy-tale feel of the misty, mossy Oregon old-growth forests where much of the action takes place.

"Twilight" finds Bella relocating from hot, dry, flat Phoenix to moist, green Falls, Wash., a small town where her father (Billy Burke) is the chief of police.

At her new school, Bella is adopted by a group of semi-nerds, which she often treats with condescension rather than gratitude. She's more intrigued by the pale, broody Cullen clan, who mysteriously skips class whenever the sky isn't overcast.

In Meyer's WB-ready rewrite of the vampire myths made famous by Universal and Hammer films, undead bloodsuckers like Edward fit into society by becoming what they call "vegatarians" -- drinkers of animal blood, which they equate with tofu: It's healthy but not very satisfying. On their first dinner date, before Bella knows Edward's secret, she's surprised when he abstains from ordering: "I'm on a -- special diet," he intones, in an update of Bela Lugosi's famous line: "I never drink -- wine."

Although some viewers may long for less bloodlust and more bloodletting, "Twilight" loses interest when it abandons romance for action. The violent battle between Edward and an evil vampire (Cam Gigandet) for Bella's heart (literally, in the bad guy's case) provides the film with a somewhat forced climax, although the choice of setting is clever: The showdown takes place in a ballet studio, a location that probably holds significant memories for some of Meyer's most avid fans.

-- John Beifuss: 529-2394