Gothic romance blooms in brooding, beguiling 'Twilight'

Be you a Capulet or a Montague, a Jet or a Shark, a black or a white, a vampire or a mortal, adolescent love across party lines can be a torturous affair, even deadly.

This unbending, unreasonable force called teen romance becomes the irresistible power that propels the seriously uncrossed lovers of "Twilight" through a brooding, strangely beguiling reinterpretation of the vampire myth, based on the popular novel by Stephenie Meyer.

Vampires no long carry the religious Christian baggage of their predecessors - caustic crucifixes, fatal sunlight, acidic holy water - but quietly coexist with mortals as America's newest, sexiest minority.

The reclusive Cullen family exists on a no-humans diet, preferring to hunt and kill animals in the forest. As we find out, the Cullens settled in the small town of Forks, Washington, after leaving Alaska.

That's where shy and serious Arizona girl Bella Swan (an appealingly reserved Kristen Stewart) moves to be with her divorced dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), the town's police chief.

At the local high school, Bella meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a mysteriously magnetic junior with Jimmy Dean's cool, a rebellious coiffure, cruel mouth, pale countenance and El-Marko permanent dashes where his eyebrows should be.

He never eats with her. Why not?

"I'm on a special diet," Edward replies, throwing away a line that should have been his version of Dracula's famous utterance, "I don't drink... wine."

Bella begins to suspect Edward might be something special after he seems to know what people are thinking, and saves her from a conveniently out-of-control truck, stopped cold by Edward's hand.

"I know what you are!" Bella blurts when she gets Edward alone in the Washington wilderness.

"Say it!" Edward barks.

"You're a vampire!" Bella belts out.

In any other vampire romance movie, these exchanges would be deadly comical.

Here, they work, not only because Pattinson and Stewart saturate their lines with conviction, but director Catherine Hardwicke - who gave us a tough, teen indie gem called "Thirteen" - understands the romanticized excesses of her adolescent characters, and gives a real pulse to the entire high school community where unguarded teenagers act with goofy abandon the way real ones do.

Edward's family is not happy that he has spilled their secret to a mortal girl. Yet, in a complete sidestep of expectation, the family accepts her over for dinner where she's welcomed by Edward's father, the unearthly white and rather young Dr. Cullen (Peter Facinelli).

Not all the Cullen clan accepts Bella, but that doesn't stop the group from heading out to play a rousting game of vampire baseball in the woods.

Here, "Twilight" comes dangerously close to "The Addams Family" played for no laughs. The timely arrival of a trio of renegade, nomadic vampire predators instantly redirects the story into deadly seriousness, as one of the interlopers (Cam Gigandet) becomes obsessed with Bella and wants to give the teen a fatal hickey.

"Twilight" offers a few well-turned pieces of dialogue (some directly from the book), but Melissa Rosenberg's script, perhaps in an ill-conceived attempt to preserve the book's approach, loads up the movie with big chunks of force-fed exposition, turning the story into a first-person narrative laced with superfluous flashbacks and scenes that Bella couldn't possibly know about to relate them in her story.

When a jealous classmate tells Bella that Edward "looks at you like you're something to eat," the line doesn't just sound hokey, high schoolers would never let the blatant sexual innuendo pass without comment.

It might stretch credibility that Edward maintains his adolescent view of the world without any of the wisdom that at least a century of earthly experience would necessarily bring.

After all, "Twilight" is ultimately a romance between two unlikely lovers, a Hollywood staple, and a little suspension of disbelief is in order.

Even when none of the vampires brandishes fangs.

"Twilight"

Rating: 3 stars

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Cam Gigandet.

Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke

Other: A Summit Entertainment release. Rated PG-13 for sexual situations, violence. 122 minutes

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=251680">Vant to test your vampire trivia? <span class="date">[11/20/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>