Please Bite Right *Here*

"Isn't it enough to live a long, beautiful life with me?"
- Edward Cullen

In the spirit of the holiday season, I'm granting myself this time to be a 13 year-old again. I watched Twilight with my boyfriend's little step-sister, who is officially a teenager now, and her friend in Florida a few weeks ago. I made sure to read the book first, in a confused attempt to ruin forever either the book, or the movie. Neither happened, and the whole experience was oddly invigorating in the way wearing galoshes in the rain is invigorating, or in the way buying new notebooks for the school year was invigorating. Part of me thought, "I am too OLD for this shit." The other part of me squealed in delight every time Stephanie Meyers went into her rant of how beautiful Edward Cullen looks, and how mesmerizing his everythingness is to the guileless Bella.

The book was okay. I believe that I've read worse schlock, but the only example I can think of is the copy in US Weekly. The plot is, in hindsight, not the worse plot I've ever encountered, but during the reading, I wanted to know what happens badly enough to keep on turning the pages. And it was a hefty number of pages: somewhere in the 400s. The dialogue was stilted, but sort of fitting for awkward teenagers to utter. The descriptions were weak, and repetitive, but I'm assuming young female readers have ample imaginations to fashion an impossibly handsome vampire in their heads upon the first millionth time his looks are mentioned, so as to make the blundering adjectives moot. And wow, upon rereading this last paragraph, I don't sound like I enjoyed the book at all, but that's not true. I liked the book, only...I'm not sure why. Perhaps I still haven't matured beyond the tween-Sarah of yore, and still yearn deeply for some invincible mutant-hero to come rescue me from this mundane, human life. Or perhaps I am still enthralled by vampires, by their fabled strength and abilities, and by their unavoidable curse. Perhaps, I was just bored and wanted to leech some exuberance from the young, supple fans of this phenomenon known as Twilight.

The movie was okay, too. Even as I sat in the theater, I was thinking that the scriptwriter needs to be murdered, so as to prevent her from ever writing again. But then I realized that she didn't have much good stock with which to work; the writing in the book was quite atrocious, so what was I expecting? The actors did what they could with their halting, unnatural lines. Visually, the female protagonist, Bella, was pretty on point. Her acting was a bit wooden, but I guess that can be misconstrued as ennui, and ennui can be considered sexy. There was one point where I wanted to rip my ears off -- when she was in the hospital freaking out about Edward possibly leaving her to protect her from himselfyaddayadda -- because of the absolute BADNESS of her acting, but aside from that one part, her screaming was convincing, and I kind of like actresses who don't give a shit. The male protagonist, Edward Cullen, was terribly written. Robert Pattinson delivered a performance that was intriguing, but his lines made him seem like some A.D.D.-ridden manic depressive. I've dated people like his character; it wasn't fun then, and it wasn't fun to watch it on the big screen now. There were moments when Pattinson shone, all the times when he smiled brilliantly and unguardedly, but most of the time, the character was just a scowling mess. There were no scenes that showcased his dangerousness successfully; there was no magic. I'm almost petulant about this, because the whole damn book is about how extraordinary he is, only the movie failed miserably at making it into a reality. Still, he's now a certified heartthrob, from all the reports of fans asking him to bite them. If broken skin, infection, and unfortunate scarring don't deter the fans, his stardom is set.

The one redeeming line in the entire movie, which was not in the book, is the one quoted at the beginning of this post. The issues of mortality, of living a meaningful and natural life, and of submitting to fate can play heavily into the plot, but it doesn't really. In a world of immediate gratification, Bella's wish to live forever with Edward seems fair, and almost expected. He doesn't comply, and that makes this love tender. Isn't it enough to live a long, and beautiful life? The one precious thing about life is that it ends. But that's getting too deep into that internal struggle of Edward's. He's hot, and he glitters. It's awesome.