"Twilight" directed by Catherine Hardwicke

“Twilight”, 2008, directed by Catherine Hardwicke, screenplay by Melissa Rosenberg. Based on the novel by Stephanie Meyer

Summary
Fans of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series got to watch the film version when director Catherine Hardwicke’s movie hit the big screen in 2008. The film mostly stays faithful to the novel, chronicling the trials of Bella Swan who has recently moved to small town Forks, Washington where she falls in love with a vampire, Edward Cullen. Much of the first half of the film shows the repressed desire the two have for each other. The first notable moment of the seething passion show Edward storming out of Biology class when  Bella is assigned a seat next to him in lab. Little does Bella know that the reason Edward gives her the cold shoulder is that he is overcome with desire for her but doesn’t want to harm her with his desire for human blood. Still, Edward can’t help but show his concern for Bella, rescuing her from harm on more than one occasion using his superhuman powers (notably strength and speed). The two finally declare their love for each other, and Bella takes the gamble of dating a repressed vampire. The tension in the novel centers on Edward’s need to keep his mouth from sinking into Bella’s delicate neck and a tribe of non-"vegetarian" (as Edward refers to his adoptive family) vampires who are wreaking havoc in Forks and circling impatiently for Bella’s flesh. Will Edward be able to protect her?

Critical Evaluation
The most enjoyable part of the film for this viewer came in watching the setting of the film. Shot on location in the Pacific Northwest (mostly Oregon), the director does an excellent job of capturing the green lusciousness of that saturated landscape. The opening scene hints at danger ahead with a depiction of  a deer running through the dense forest trying to escape a predator, and the reader is welcomed into the tension of the story and the  habitat of the light-fleeing vampires. One of the most beautiful scenes depicts Bella and Edward climbing and flying through enormous pine trees giving a great sense of the scale of the forests there. One off-note, however, was in the director’s choice to make the student population at Bella’s Forks High School a multi-cultural dream mix. Rural Washington may have gorgeous forests, but an abundance of African-American and Asian-American students it lacks, and so that aspect of the setting rang false to this viewer.

Annotation
Fan of the Twilight series? See how the film compares!

Challenge Issues
Portrayal of vampires. If the movie were challenged, I would turn to ALA's Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library  Materials.

Why Included?
The Twilight series is a pop-culture sensation, one that many teens adore. I was curious to see how the film version compared to the novel and wanted to be able to talk about it with patrons.