|
|
|
|
|
|
World
Travel
Destinations
|
|
Dreamscapes
Original Fiction
|
Opinion
& Lifestyle
Politics & Living
|
|
|
Kid's
Books
Reviews & stories
|
|
|
|
|
The
International Writers Magazine - Our Tenth Year: Film
Twilight
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, from the novel by Stephanie
Meyer
Aby Davis review
Theres
a well known phrase that goes a bit like this: Behind every big
blockbuster is a massively successful novel. Its not really
a well known phrase despite my best efforts, because I just made
it up, but there has always been a pattern of books making it visual
on the big screen, and the latest one to fill our cinemas is Twilight,
a vampire romance based on the phenomenally successful books by
Stephanie Meyer. If you havent heard of the books, youve
no doubt heard of the film because all your mates are raving on
about Robert Patterson and how handsome he is.
|
|
Pattersons
on screen character - Edward Cullen - is everyones favourite nightmare,
handsome and brooding ala Darcy/Heathcliff/Captain Von Trappe. his love
interest, Bella is a gloomy girl- next- door dumped in Forks (a small,
rainy town in Washington) to live with her dad, Chief Charlie Swan.
Bella is lost and lonely and drifting about school until BAM! Her eyes
lock with Edward Cullen as he sits with his weird siblings across a
crowded cafeteria. It soon transpires that he is a vampire, she clearly
is not, and so the age- old star-crossed lovers formula lays out a love
story for the generation that grew out of Harry Potter. Like Harry Potter
in America, Meyers books have sold in their millions and topped
best-sellers nationwide, except the Twilight series is only four books
long and much, much sexier. Something HP was NEVER destined to be.
I finished the last in the series, Breaking Dawn recently, and
while it was gripping and a satisfying end to the series, I questioned
how it could ever be made into a film. The series gets darker with more
grit and blood (after all, the protagonist is going out with a vampire!)
than anything the first book dealt with, horrifying in detail and Meyer
puts her characters through hell.
Twilight, however was a nice easy one to begin with. Boy meets
Girl, Boy wants to drink girls blood, Boy dates girl despite wanting
to drink her blood, evil vampire tries to kill Girl and Boy gets to
drink some of Girls blood in the end anyway, Girl doesnt
mind and goes to the prom with him. A perfect film adaptation in the
making: romance, drama, sexy vampires in tuxedos, oh and a potential
love rival to keep things interesting. So it was with ease that I settled
back to watch Catherine Hardwickes version of events. It looked
beautiful: lush green scenery washed in blues created a gloomy small
town, heavy with the loneliness and discomfort of the leading lady.
I must confess though, I never got what Bella had to be so miserable
about, I dont recall her cracking a smile more than twice. Then
whats there to smile about when your boyfriend calls you yummy
and means it?
Fortunately, Hardwicks version stuck nicely to Meyers plot
and nothing seemed too out of place. The script made me cringe in places,
Edward didnt sound quite right when he told Bella to hold
tight, spider monkey! as he raced her through the trees, and he
sounded like he was thinking of auditioning for a bad grunge band when
he told her she was his personal type of heroin, but I let
him off. Love makes us say funny things. As the book is told in the
first person, the issue for Hardwick was to ensure we knew Bellas
thoughts- as they are integral to the story. Cue the opening internal
monologue with words straight from the prologue of the book. A beautiful
deer sips demurely from a pool deep in a forest as something sinister
watches it from the bushes. Bellas voice is steady,
"I'd never given much thought to how I would die---though I'd
had reason enough in the last few months---but even if I had, I would
not have imagined it like this! Surely it was a good way to die, in
the place of someone else, someone I loved,"
Before I saw Twilight I asked my friends what they thought of
it, I made a mistake however in asking those friends who loved the books
so much that Edward was their screensaver and they were ordering Mrs
Cullen t-shirts on the internet. Needless to say, they hated it. Not
long enough to fully make us appreciate their love, rubbish acting,
ugly actors, ridiculous special effects...ok, the special effects were
spectacularly rubbish and the flying/running-really-fast vampires were
jerked about on their wires like Pinocchio, but I found that all quite
charming. I feel fond of films with bad special effects; they seem earnest
and unashamed of their small budget. All in all, it was a very decent
book adaptation. Not as good as the book of course, they rarely are,
but an enjoyable film. I would think it was necessary for anyone to
read the book first as there are subtleties of language and subtext
which dont translate so well onto the screen. And if you really
hate the film, the soundtrack is a decent enough distraction.
Twilight is not the first popular book to make it onto the small
screen, but it is also not the best. Lets take a look at the good,
the bad and the ugly of book to screen adaptations, as well as ones
to watch out for on DVD:
HOLES:
Based on Louis Sachers bestseller of the same name, Holes tells
the story of Stanley Yelnats: a boy with terminally bad luck. When a
case of wrong place, wrong time leads him to a detention camp in the
middle of a desert, he is forced to dig holes all day with a merry band
of inmates. No one questions why their digging holes, or what it is
that the manic Warden is so desperate to find buried beneath the desert.
The films screenplay was also written by Louis Sacher so the plot
is pretty identical to the book. Sigourney Weaver is brilliantly brutal
and absolutely nuts as Warden Walker, and a young Shia LaBoef of Transformers
fame plays the terrifically named Stanley Yelnats. It would be hard
to mess up such a satisfyingly tidy storyline as the one in Sachers
book, so the only qualm I have about this movie is: if it aint
broke, dont fix it.
THE PRINCESS BRIDE:
Funny, silly, exciting and downright ridiculous. This parody of the
fantasy-adventure genre is very eightees and out-dated, but still good.
Buttercup is the most beautiful girl in the land and only discovers
she loves her farm boy,Westley, to lose him to pirates as
he tries to make his fortune for their future overseas. Being the most
beautiful girl in the land, Prince Humperdink decides to marry her,
and as Westley is gone and she doesnt care much about anything
anymore, she decides to go along with it. A plot to kidnap her and start
a war with a neighbouring country soon unravels, and Buttercups
less than able kidnappers are thwarted by a man in black...but who is
he?
William Goldmans novel is still much funnier, the writing is witty
and the characters are all bonkers, but this is one case of reading
the book afterwards and loving it...whilst still holding the film in
high esteem.
© Aby Davis Jan 2009
Aby is in the final year of her Creative Writing Degree at the Univerrsity
of Portsmouth
Laura
Marling
Aby Davis Review
The Wedgewood rooms, Portsmouth. Amidst the company of young girls
with un-straightened hair and charity shop scarves, and some mums wearing
embroidered jeans I anticipated excellent live music from 18 year old
new folk-ist, Laura Marling.
More
reviews
Home
©
Hackwriters 1999-2009
all rights reserved - all comments are the writers' own responsibility
- no liability accepted by hackwriters.com or affiliates.
|