Twilight (2008)

Rated PG-13

122 minutes

Cast

Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan

Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen

Billy Burke as Charlie Swan

Ashley Greene as Alice Cullen

Nikki Reed as Rosalie Hale

Jackson Rathbone as Jasper Hale

Kellan Lutz as Emmet Cullen

Directed by

• Catherine Hardwicke

Based on the novel by

• Stephenie Meyer

Screenplay by

• Melissa Rosenberg

Twilight (2008) Plot

Seventeen-year-old Bella Swan, leaves Phoenix, Arizona and moves to Forks, a small town located on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, to live with her father, Charlie, the town’s police chief. Her mother, Renée, is remarried to Phil, a minor league baseball player whose career often keeps them on the road.

Bella becomes re-acquainted with Jacob Black, a Native American teen who lives with his father, Billy, on the Quileute Indian Reservation near Forks. She makes friends at her new high school, but finds the mysterious and aloof Cullen siblings particularly intriguing. Bella is seated next to Edward Cullen in biology class on her first day, but he seems repulsed by her. After a week’s absence from school, Edward returns and socializes normally with Bella.

A few days later, she is nearly struck by a skidding van in the school parking lot. Edward instantaneously covers a distance of over thirty feet, putting himself between Bella and the van, stopping it with only his hand. He subsequently refuses to explain his actions to her, warning her against befriending him. Jacob tells Bella about a long-standing animosity between the Cullens and the Quileutes, and says the Cullens are not allowed on the reservation.

After much research, Bella concludes that Edward has mysterious powers that resemble a vampire’s. He eventually confirms this, but says that he and the other Cullens only consume animal blood. They fall in love, and Edward introduces Bella to his vampire family. Carlisle Cullen, the family patriarch, is a doctor at the Forks hospital. Esme is Carlisle’s wife and the family matriarch. Alice, Jasper, Emmett, and Rosalie are their informally-adopted children. The family’s reaction to Bella is mixed, concerned that the family’s secret could be exposed.

Edward and Bella’s relationship is jeopardized when three nomadic vampires—James, Victoria, and Laurent—arrive in the Forks area, and are responsible for a series of deaths being investigated as animal attacks. James, a tracker vampire with incredible hunting instincts, is excited by Bella’s scent and becomes obsessed with hunting her for sport. Edward and the other Cullens protect Bella, but James tracks her to Phoenix, where she is hiding with Jasper and Alice.

James lures Bella into a trap at an old ballet studio. He attacks her, infecting her with vampire venom. Edward arrives and, after a ferocious battle, subdues James just as other Cullens arrive. Alice, Emmett, and Jasper kill James, decapitating and burning him, as Edward removes the venom from Bella’s wrist, preventing her becoming a vampire.

In the aftermath, she has suffered a broken leg and is hospitalized. Upon returning to Forks, Edward accompanies Bella to the high school prom, where he refuses her request to transform her into a vampire. They are unaware that James’ mate, Victoria, is secretly watching them, plotting revenge for her lover’s death.

Twilight (2008) Box office

Twilight grossed over $7 million in ticket sales from midnight showings alone on November 21, 2008. The film is fifth overall on Fandango’s list of top advance ticket sales, outranked only by its sequel the following year, Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005), The Dark Knight (2008), and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). It grossed $35.7 million on its opening day.

For its opening weekend in the United States and Canada, Twilight accumulated $69.6 million from 3,419 theaters at an average of $20,368 per theater. The film grossed $192,769,854 in the United States and Canada, and $214,417,861 in international territories for a total of $407,187,715. Its opening weekend gross was the highest ever of a female-directed film, surpassing that of Deep Impact (1998).

Twilight (2008) Critical reception

Based on 219 reviews collected by Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 49% and a weighted average score of 5.41/10. The website’s critical consensus reads: “Having lost much of its bite transitioning to the big screen, Twilight will please its devoted fans, but do little for the uninitiated.” On Metacritic, it has a weighted mean score of 56 based on 38 reviews from film critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”. New York Press critic Armond White called the film “a genuine pop classic”, and praised Hardwicke for turning “Meyer’s book series into a Brontë-esque vision.”  Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, “I saw it at a sneak preview.

Last time I saw a movie in that same theater, the audience welcomed it as an opportunity to catch up on gossip, texting, and laughing at private jokes. This time the audience was rapt with attention”. In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Twilight is unabashedly a romance. All the story’s inherent silliness aside, it is intent on conveying the magic of meeting that one special person you’ve been waiting for.

Maybe it is possible to be 13 and female for a few hours after all”. USA Today gave the film two out of four stars and Claudia Puig wrote, “Meyer is said to have been involved in the production of Twilight, but her novel was substantially more absorbing than the unintentionally funny and quickly forgettable film”. Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “B” rating and Owen Gleiberman praised Hardwicke’s direction: “She has reconjured Meyer’s novel as a cloudburst mood piece filled with stormy skies, rippling hormones, and understated visual effects”.

Twilight (2008) Accolades

Since its release, Twilight has received numerous nominations and awards. In January 2009, Carter Burwell was nominated for Film Composer of the Year by the International Film Music Critics Association.

Robert Pattinson won Bravo TV’s A-List Award for A-List Breakout. At the 2009 MTV Movie Awards, Pattinson, who was nominated alongside Taylor Lautner, also won an award for Male Breakthrough Performance, “Decode” was nominated for Best Song from a Movie, Twilight won an award for Best Movie, Kristen Stewart won for Best Female performance, Stewart and Pattinson were awarded Best Kiss, and Pattinson and Cam Gigandet won an award for Best Fight. Christian Serratos won a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film: Supporting Young Actress.

For the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, held on August 9, the film and its actors received a combined total of 12 nominations, nine of which the film won. At the 2009 Scream Awards, the film was nominated for nine awards, four of which it won. The film won two ALMA Awards for makeup and hairstyling.  It also won the Public Choice Award at the World Soundtrack Awards, where Carter Burwell was also nominated for Composer of the Year. Catherine Hardwicke received a Young Hollywood Award for her directing.  In addition, the film was nominated for Best Fantasy Film at the 35th Saturn Awards and two Grammy Awards.