Spoilers Ahead!
Twilight, released on the November 21st, 2008, is a romantic fantasy film based on the 2005 novel of the same name by Stephanie Meyer. It was directed by Catherine Hardwicke and grossed over $407 million worldwide, in 2009 Twilight was released on DVD and became the most purchased DVD of the year. Following the films succession, the two sequels to Twilight (New Moon and Eclipse) were both produced in 2010. Personally, I enjoyed the Twilight series due to nostalgia, however I can recognise the flaws/weaknesses of the movie and why it isn't as great as it is acclaimed to be by many. Twilight's cast has many noticeable actors in it such as Kristen Stewart who plays Bella Swan, the lead, and Robert Pattinson who plays Edward Cullen, the main love interest. Stewart can be recognised from her roles as Sabina Wilson in Charlie's Angels (2019) and Princess Diana in Spencer (2021), whilst Pattinson is most famous for his roles as Bruce Wayne in The Batman (2022) and Thomas Howard in The Lighthouse (2019).
Twilight follows the life of 17-year-old Bella Swan who moves from Phoenix, Arizona back into her hometown of Forks, Washington which is a small town with an even smaller population and is one of the rainiest locations in the United States. She moves into a two-bedroom townhouse with her father and Chief of Police, Charlie, and begins attending Forks High School where she quickly gains attention due to being both the new girl in town and the Chief of Police's daughter. Everything she believed to be fictional turns out to be real when it is discovered that her lab partner, the mysterious Edward Cullen, is revealed to be a vampire along with the rest of his family. Throughout the majority of the movie, the Cullen's (Edward's family and a coven of vampires who conveniently only drink animal blood) are protecting Bella from a trio of antagonistic vampires who wish to kill her. However, alongside the main plotline of the movie the audience is introduced to characters such as Mike Newton, a teenage boy and friend of Bella's who completely juxtaposes the supernatural due to his normality, and Jacob Black, a character who is the complete opposite of the main love interest with his humanity and foreshadows the coming of even more supernatural beings in the sequel movies.
To establish the supernatural yet dramatic element of Twilight, the opening scene of the movie has a voice over monologue from the main character as she expresses, she has 'never given much thought to how she would die' in which she foretells both her own death and her encounters with the undead (or in this case, vampires.) The first shot of the movie is a peaceful forest featuring a deer that is drinking from a pond, unaware of the predator stalking it. The camera angle quickly becomes a P.O.V in which we see the predator/prey chase in what can only be assumed as through Edward's eyes. The camera follows the fleeing deer quickly, causing a sense of exhilaration before we see someone wrap their arms around the deer and the scene changes to our first view of Bella Swan. There are many enigma codes throughout Twilight, however the opening scene is definitely the most prominent one as it leaves us questioning why Bella is pondering her own death, who was hunting the deer and why the scene changes so fast.
The film had a large amount of success due to being the first adaption of vampires since Bram Stoker's novel Dracula and introduced a much more romanticizable vampire species, alongside it's thrilling plot and emotional relationships. However, Twilight has since been shunned by the younger generation of romance movie enjoyers due to the odd relationship between Bella and Edward. Whilst Bella is a 17-year-old human girl, Edward is a 104-year-old vampire and yet Twilight attempts to justify this creepy age gap by making Edward forever trapped in a 17-year-old body (which in my opinion, only makes the entire thing slightly weirder.) Not only has the age gap between the two protagonists deterred possible new fans, but the peculiar dialogue in some scenes has discouraged many from watching Twilight in its entirety. For example, at one point Edward Cullen calls Bella Swan a "spider monkey" and during a different scene he says, "You're like my own personal brand of heroin." which really leaves us wondering just how romantic he is actually being.
As the movie progresses, the audience gains a sense of who the two lovers are and are able to make assumptions based off of their actions and decisions. Bella quickly becomes the damsel in distress when it is revealed her life is in danger and despite the threat of her own death, she is more concerned about Edward's wellbeing and what he wants which shows that she is truly infatuated with him. On the other hand, Edward is extremely overprotective and often takes his security too far to the point he ignores Bella's wishes in favour of her security, rather having her alive and breathing than being anywhere near danger. He holds feelings of guilt and remorse for bringing Bella into his world, the supernatural world, which shines through when he denies her what can only be described as 'the change'.
A personal problem I've always had with Stephanie Meyer's version of vampires is their attributes. Whilst they carry the traditional theme of being extremely pale and shockingly cold, along with many of the vampire cast having noticeable blood red eyes, they also have some questionable features such as their skin sparkling in sunlight and their (Edward and his family) eyes being an amber colour. Of course, in the world of fantasy nobody has any queries about the unnatural shade of eye colour, besides the ever-observant Bella Swan.
Twilight has a blue tint throughout the movie, presumably to give it a cold and ethereal look that matches the visionary of Stephanie Meyer's novel. The tint makes Twilight stand out from other fantasy films because it makes the movie much more mythical. In fact, Twilight, the first movie of the saga, has a much more noticeable blue tint than the other three films which aids in setting the tone for the entire series, my thought is that this small adjustment to Twilight is extremely important as it is evidently different in visual style with the sequel, New Moon. This is mainly due to the fact that whilst Twilight focuses on the problematic romance between a human and a vampire, New Moon has a completely different approach and focuses on a new plotline in which Edward is hardly on screen and yet plays such a major role to the story. Not only this, but Twilight's infamous blue tint also masks how painfully odd some of the scenes in the movie are by giving them a much more atmosphere. Strangely, the tint is on-brand for Twilight as the vampire cast tend to pose more aggressively than normal and wear less than aesthetically pleasing colours, both of which are disguised when the audience is subconsciously focusing on the ambience of a scene.
Despite its obvious prosperity, Twilight received mixed reviews from critics as well as 5.3/10 on IMDb and 49% from Rotten Tomatoes. It appealed to its intended target audience and appeased readers of the Twilight novel yet may not click with viewers who have not read the Twilight novels. Overall, Twilight is a great movie if you've had experience with the novels or simply grew up romanticising the relationship between the protagonists, yet it is inherently silly at times and brings a whole new meaning to the term "forbidden love".
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