Review: The Twilight Saga: New Moon

Even the most egocentric or self-important film critic realizes that his opinions and insights aren't going to be agreed with or respected by everyone, but movies like New Moon offer a special challenge in both honesty and humility. Like with any other beloved literary franchise brought to the silver screen, there's already an impassioned fan base eager to see it realized regardless of its quality, and there's also an inherent distrust among them of nonfans who will eventually be analyzing the object of their affection. In which case, a critic must not only manage his own response to the film, perhaps filtering it through some designated demographic or specific audience that's potentially different than him, but gauge the reaction he'll get when he puts pen to paper, if only to be aware of the relevance of his reaction to what the filmmakers were trying to achieve and what those fans really want. Even if he's also got to be completely honest and unmerciful, too.

By virtually all technical measures, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is a superior effort to its predecessor – well-shot, efficiently told, and by all accounts faithful in tone and execution to its source material. But what filmmaker Chris Weitz makes up for in directorial proficiency he lacks in conveying emotional authenticity, which is why it fulfills the expectations of fans and followers of the franchise but nevertheless still falls short of forming something transcendent and meaningful to everyone else.

Following the events of the first film, Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) have settled into a comfortable groove as a couple, regularly discussing their differences before school, in the lunchroom, and any time they have a second to share with one another. At Bella's birthday party, however, she is accidentally injured, and Edward is forced to intervene when Cullen newbie Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) attacks her. Seeing no other way to protect her, Edward breaks up with Bella, sending her into a deep depression that only begins to dissipate after she starts hanging out with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who has matured into enough of a hunk to qualify as a rival for her affections.

The two soon grow close, even though Bella acknowledges that Jacob is in many ways little more than a stand-in for her absentee fella. But when Bella discovers that Edward is set to expose himself to other humans, thereby securing his fate at the hands of the vampire council, called the Volturi, she races to Italy after Edward, setting in motion a series of events that may risk both of their lives - even if she arrives in time to save him.

While Catherine Hardwicke beautifully captured and conveyed the emotional weight of Bella's obsession with Edward in Twilight, it doesn't seem like she would have been able to handle the expanded effects work and overall logistical complexity that this film's mythology-heavy narrative demanded. As such, Weitz was a suitable choice for a replacement, having previously directed The Golden Compass, whose scuffles between polar bears were no doubt a terrific primer for the CGI werewolves that he brings to life in New Moon. Unfortunately, while the producers found a person in Weitz who could balance out Hardwicke's weaknesses as a filmmaker, they didn't find one who could also match her strengths, which is why Bella's story in this film feels proficiently told but not particularly evocative.

After a decade of directing, and even having liked many of his movies, it nevertheless seems clear that Weitz is only ever as good as his material, and working from Melissa Rosenberg's delicate, often poetic blueprint of Stephenie Meyer's sand-castle foundation (in terms both of complexity and fortitude), he fails to do more than fulfill the rote expectations of fans awaiting a film about a girl being depressed about a boy. His sense of visual flourish is frequently the best thing about the movie, creating compelling visual representations of iconic passages from the book like the blank months after Edward breaks up with her, but he neither conveys why she cares about him so much, or why she's completely incapable of getting over him, especially when there's a readily available and really charming guy (whom she obviously likes) waiting in the wings.


Meanwhile, the book itself seems like an unfriendly collaborator, filled with so much mythology and back story and exposition that one still can't help but admire the fact that Weitz didn't reduce the film to an extended monologue. That said, there is a neverending series of thresholds that get crossed, each of them predicated on some piece of information or access that someone can't reveal, and then they get broken or explained or crossed anyway. While her complete and total revision of vampire iconography is evidence enough that Meyer doesn't know or care about protecting the legacies of the creatures she examines, her stories (at least in this case) lend themselves poorly to three-dimensional adaptation, partially given the wealth of ham-fisted, poorly-introduced and clumsily-revealed plot points that had to be brought to life more or less literally and exactingly on film, but mostly because she wrote a so-called vampire story that spends the majority of its time ruminating on how sucky it is to be dumped by somebody.

Admittedly, however, the bigger problem is Bella herself, and the way that she was originally conceived in Meyer's books. While vulnerability is an integral part of a complete portrait of any character (much less person), male or female, Bella is weak, undefined and too dependent on Edward – a deeply unflattering and fairly irresponsible role model for young women to relate to, especially since she takes full advantage of another friendship (and moreover, justifies it) in order to fill the gap left by Edward's absence, and further, never seems interested in becoming her own person. It doesn't take a lot of empathy to understand the idea of heartbreak or loss, and how that feeling can become debilitating, but Bella is almost exclusively defined by her relationship with Edward, and that's something she never overcomes even after the two part ways.

What's most disappointing is that I actually liked Twilight when I first saw it, and was really hoping that the characterizations in New Moon would at least quiet critics who made empty, oblivious generalizations about the franchise while celebrating equally frivolous, dubiously responsible male-oriented ones, of which there are many, many more. But the performances, particularly by Stewart and Pattinson, do nothing to engender sympathy or interest in their characters, or their first-world problems: I've defended Stewart and think she has the potential to be a really terrific actress, but here she's completely guilty of indulging all of the trembling and hair-tousling that people castigated her for in the first film; and Pattinson's ongoing problem with making eye contact, not to mention failing to provide suitably energetic reactions when, say, discovering that your true love is not only alive, but has saved your life, gives audiences no reason to love Edward as much as Bella does (dreamily elusive though he may be).

Only Lautner manages to show some spark as Jacob, giving Bella's choice between him and Edward genuine weight, but the movie is so front-loaded with Edward love that even his absence feels like a reverse-engineered way to make him more desirable. In which case, to an outsider checking out this film, New Moon feels like an unwanted follow-up to a 1980s teen movie where the girl loses her dream guy at the beginning of the sequel, and goes back to her guy friend who's been pining for her the whole time; not only is it an unwelcome step backwards in the characters' lives, it's more than a little bit pathetic. But then again, the many girls and women who relate to Bella will no doubt swoon in recognition at the sight of her struggling to get over this gorgeous guy, which is probably why my observations – even as open-minded as I mean for them to be presented - probably won't matter to them.

Ultimately, to yours truly, The Twilight Saga: New Moon is a mediocre film, but for Twilight fans it should qualify as a triumph. That said, I am genuinely happy to see that females have finally got themselves a franchise that inspires such fervent passion, don't think less of lovers of Twilight, and welcome and respect differences of opinion. But my sincere hope is that the success of this series spawns other female-driven franchises, because like the ones that guys so much more often get to enjoy, women occasionally come around to see our side of things, and some day soon I'd very much like to say the same about them.