I liked the new Twilight movie. Whoops.
This is a particularly problematic and embarrassing revelation for me. In addition to being a snooty critic of cinematic craftsmanship, I have also spent the past few years decrying this internationally best-selling series, which explodes with misogyny, and to which young girls blindly sell their souls.
Just this past Monday I hosted a screening and discussion through SafetyNet, the student peer education component of the Think S.A.F.E. Project, about the romanticized abuse and dating violence integral to the franchise. I read all four books; they are entertaining in their preposterousness, and I get a sort of sick pleasure from feminist-ing all over them.
I was expecting the same sort of deal for the premiere of Breaking Dawn Part 1, the book-version’s plot of which is arguably the most ridiculous yet, and generally a sexist train wreck.
Heartily prepared to get angry at the blockbuster idolization of my least favorite couple in modern cinema — who, in the past three films, have proven that family, friends, education and even life itself is less important than the opportunity to mind-numbingly slobber all over each other for all eternity — I found that my anger took a backseat to a sort of giddiness, which I chalked up to the coffee I’d had on an empty stomach, and the wild realization that this movie did not suck.
The franchise has come a long way since 2008’s release of the first film, throughout which the acting was cringingly weird and terrible, and a gross sexual tension oozed from the space where violence and pain should have been. (When they meet, and for a good long while, Edward is attracted to Bella in the sense that there has never been anyone else on Earth he wanted to eat so badly. Gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “sexual appetite,” am I right?).
But budgets have grown exponentially, and there’s a new kid on the refurbished block: Bill Condon, who directed both Dream Girls and Gods and Monsters (the latter for which he won a Best Screenplay Oscar). He somehow got pulled into this daunting project, and has remolded a ridiculous novel into an actual film instead of a joke.
I am going to guess it was Condon who told monotone, glassy-eyed Kristen Stewart to stop the painfully awkward sputtering, shrugging, lip-biting and hair-tousling and start actually acting like a real person. The new Bella of Breaking Dawn Pt. 1 is a relaxed, expressional and smiling version of her zombie-like self of movies past. And while Edward is as much a stoic vampire as ever, Robert Pattinson gives him some human vitality that, until now, has been missing. Edward grins warmly and genuinely without looking like he is going to kill anybody, and frequently, he laughs.
The transformation of the two central characters this time around is, I think, the apex of a shift from an all-consuming, creepy and disturbing love story to a toned-down, more responsible and enjoyable fairytale even I could swallow.
What Condon did was cut the bullshit.
Bella and Edward have a wildly expensive, springy white wedding, and then gallivant off to a private island near Rio to frolic on the white sands and consummate their relationship at last. If this film had adopted the same spirit of the last three, these events would be punctuated with a sloppy slew of heavy breathing, too-long embraces and desperate muttering.
Instead, the relationship finally feels natural. Bella doesn’t spend all her time drooling over Edward’s godlike good looks to the point where she can’t even function properly. Instead, the two swim, play a lot of chess and seem to take pleasure in each other’s company without needing to constantly smell each other, which, unfortunately, has heretofore been a major plot point. The audience — willingly or not — is swept up in their surprisingly easy joy, which is augmented by a lovely and dreamy indie-pop soundtrack featuring Aqualung and Iron & Wine.
Their joyousness crumples, appropriately so, when Bella is somehow impregnated with an assumedly half-vampire fetus that grows at an alarming rate, drinks her blood and kicks out her ribs. Where I was prepared to get infuriated at the screamingly anti-abortion agenda, instead I felt the power of Bella’s choice to stick out the atrocious pregnancy.
Stewart takes on her hardest Bella performance yet with a shocking amount of strength and grace. The impending birth is the focal point of the film, and Condon makes it just as disturbing as it should be. An emaciated, gray-skinned Bella toddles around the worried members of Edward’s family with her bruised stomach, head held high.
This movie is still ridiculous. There’s a laughable werewolf powwow scene, Edward makes problematically calculating comments and Condon awkwardly navigates the disconcerting occurrence of Jacob “imprinting” on a newborn baby (look it up). But there is just something here — hints of personality and delight more or less absent from the books and previous films, all feminist-unfriendly soft-core porn without real passion or heart. Maybe it was just my very, very low expectations, but consider me impressed.
