Fangless

New Moon
Directed by Chris Weitz
Starring Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson
1/5 stars

Before seeing New Moon, the second of four film instalments (as I’m sure you all know) in what is being marketed as The Twilight Saga, I took Oprah’s online Twilight quiz. I was reading an interview with Stephenie Meyer, the pitiful author of the vampire books on which the films are based, and was diverted by a rather innocuous question: “Are you a Twi-hard?” I thought, sometimes I try hard, but now that you’ve asked, I really want to know what you think, Oprah. Needless to say, I scored a dismal 8/20. I think I just became the laughing stock of the girl's washroom in every middle school in the country. I’m seriously tempted to engage in a campaign to alter the pop culture vernacular and dwindle “Twi” down to simply “Twit.”

I figured there must be some substance to this Twilight pandemonium that is capturing the imagination of herds of indiscriminate youth. The Harry Potter series worked because it was, well, magical. It borrowed well from fantasy and literature canons; it successfully explored suitable aspects of human nature and the human condition; it was reflexive and critical; and it was downright engaging. Upon seeing New Moon, I was unsurprisingly disappointed to learn that Twilight has done none of these things.

I tried to figure it out, I really did. There were even some aspects of the film I enjoyed. For example, Kristen Stewart should be applauded for practically carrying this film on her back. Dominating the screen time, she made Bella Swan’s deeply troubling depression believable and turned otherwise contrived dialogue into natural speech. And the young Taylor Lautner is a promising actor; his scenes with Bella are somewhat cute.

But the storytelling is just bad. I mean, the characters look at each other with glances that suggest they're all living in a secret world where only the film's target audience knows what the hell is happening. For the rest of us, the narrative just doesn't have the strength for the film to go anywhere. Simply responding that "well, it's in the book" isn't adequate. If the film can't stand on its own then it is no longer a film but a marketing device.

Bella is in love with the vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson) who leaves town to protect her. She struggles to grapple with his abandonment and takes solace by developing her friendship with Jacob, who either inexplicably turns into a werewolf mid-film or he was a werewolf all along, I really don’t know. Her feelings are conflicted and ambiguous, whereas Jacob’s feelings are clear: he is infatuated with her. The film certainly suggests that this is a “love triangle,” which was troubling, as Pattinson's character is absent for large portions of the film. This ploy is an example of how New Moon tries to masquerade clichéd internal conflict with compelling external conflict.

The uninteresting climax occurs in Italy, something about a vampire covenant. There is little action, no one dies, and all that results is that Edward returns to Forks, Washington. The audience is reminded again about the rivalry between werewolves and vampires — don’t worry, they have a pact! — a rivalry which appears to neither resolve nor augment itself by film's end, and Edward informs Bella that a condition of her becoming a vampire is that they must marry. That's the movie.

The film attempts inter-textuality with Romeo and Juliet. Thinking Bella is dead, Edward plans to kill himself before Bella conveniently arrives to stop him. There is no sacrifice in this movie — this is a major problem. Edward's initial abandonment itself could have been sacrificial, but it isn't fulfilled properly to be poetic.

So nothing ends up happening in the movie. We're back where we started: Bella is in an unclear relationship with Edward but it's deeply complicated; Jacob remains a third wheel; and the battle remains unchanged between vampires and werewolves. The fact that the narrative (if you can call it a narrative) has come full circle isn't necessarily a problem in and of itself, but it becomes a huge problem when neither the audience nor the characters really develop along the way.

Because of this role, Robert Pattinson has developed a love-him-or-hate-him following. “He’s got something about him,” Meyer remarked. “He doesn’t look like everybody else.” I suppose that's what happens when you cast the unacknolwedged, lost, coked-up son of Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

Why is Bella in love with Edward? He’s not charming, he’s definitely not funny, and although I don’t find Pattinson unattractive, that vampire makeup is just awful on him. Also, he’s a vampire. I would never date a vampire. Ever. A robot, maybe, but not a vampire.

I don’t even know why these books are popular. Meyer was a suburban, stay-at-home mom who one day had a dream about a girl who fell in love with a vampire. Sounds like the makings of a Harlequin romance. Wait, this is the best part: “There was a different ending to New Moon originally,” she says. “[The plot] was [originally] very much all in Bella’s head.” Meyer changed the ending because “[her] mom told [her] it would be better [another] way.” The original ending was “it was all a dream!” before your mother told you to change it?! Jesus.

Kudos for following through on a story about which you were passionate and receiving significant levels of success because of it without even having a foot in the door in the writing world. Such success even marks a significant turning point in the early years of our new millennium, as it would have been impossible for a female writer in previous eras to do the same thing unless they were super talented and witty wordsmiths. Maybe we are the verge of a new moon here — and it's not without its irony.