Catherine Hardwicke
Twilight

Twilight was born in 2005 by the author Stephenie Meyer, who placed it as the initial volume of a trilogy later extended by another book. Subsequently, in 2008, the book was adapted into a film, achieving notable success among girls aged 13 to 18, while also attracting many fans in other categories. Personally, I have only been able to see the film, which, as far as I know, fairly faithfully respects the original text.

The Meyer and her product "The story of Twilight" is simple: the love between a young human and a vampire. The plot is extremely simple, if not even skeletal: she is in love with him, who in turn reciprocates but maintains distance for fear of hurting her. Meyer treats this single theme with extreme banality, making it flat and devoid of any nuance.

The two protagonists remain equally anonymous, almost transparent in their total narrative inconsistency. All the characters, in general, appear incredibly idiotic: especially the vampires/werewolves, who it’s unclear how they have survived all these centuries given their behavior that not even a deaf person would mistake them for humans. Starting from these bases, Twilight was already significantly disadvantaged compared to all its competitors, but the film still could have improved in overall quality through good work of direction and co. It's a shame the exact opposite happened. Let's see how.

THE SCREEN ADAPTATION

What the movie lacks the most is any form of pathos, leading to the presence of an infinite foggy layer made of boredom and yawns. The main culprits of this disaster are threefold: the direction by the unknown Catherine Hardwicke, the screenplay, acting, and editing. Melissa Rosenberg, known for her work on notable TV series like "Dexter," where I fairly appreciated her, and "The O.C." was chosen as the screenwriter. Evidently, this American has the flaw of adjusting the quality of her texts based on the product given to her, failing to lift the dialogues from the stale swamp they find themselves in.

An example? "Bella, do you remember Billy Black?" (a guy on a wheelchair) "Yes! You look well, hi!" I immediately thought that either Bella is seriously brain-damaged or she has a sense of humor that's at the very least... peculiar. The overall level generally remains at this example, except in "romantic" scenes, where it manages to get even worse; see Edward telling Bella she is his favorite dose of heroin... To this are added the two protagonists, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who are on the verge of ridiculousness in terms of acting. Bella’s standard position for a good three-quarters of the film is: head slightly raised with mouth half-open, and I dare not imagine how many flies entered her mouth during filming. For Edward, the task is easier, only having to maintain an impassive face of a preppy or, at most, and here difficulties arise, the expression of restrained desire-vomit when he sees Bella.

The editing by Nancy Richardson turns out to be equally poor: fragmented rhythm, scenes too long and others too short, etc... Choices dictated by utter nonsense. Moving on to the visual-sound department, the impression isn’t particularly better. The special effects, I HOPE due to the few funds, seem to date back ten years (and not even because there was already Matrix at that time), vampires that in jumps move as if levitating or followed by a trail giving the impression of a puppet moved by strings that is impressive, not to mention the "running" which I think is blatantly inspired by that of the Naruto anime.

The soundtrack barely scrapes a bit above adequacy, remaining nonetheless rather trivial, but especially poorly inserted into various scenes, sometimes even suggesting the opposite emotion to that of the dialogues (scene of the lake above all).

THE ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS

But then why this success? In my opinion, the explanation is that it is a commercial product built ad hoc: the teenager in whom many, if not too many, will identify, the presence of characters whose only merit is being beautiful, and finally, the fantasy elements (sigh) that even make them cool. I look forward to seeing the sequel to have another laugh.