Twilight

Following the phenomenal success of Stephanie Meyers' quartet of vampire novels, the film adapation of the first book in the series, Twilight, was bound to be a success. In a year oddly barren of teen movies, Twilight had teenage girls queueing up in their thousands to see their favourite characters brought to life on the big screen. What's perhaps more surprising is that Catherine Hardwicke's (Thirteen) adaptation is actually pretty good.

Bella Swann is a sixteen year-old girl with emo trappings who has moved from her mum's place in Arizona to stay with her father in the small town of Forks, Washington. Not quite the cheerleader-type, Bella is nonetheless bright and pretty enough to make friends easily, although she is unable to feel any real connection to her new friends. She quickly draws the attention of Edward Cullen, an intense young man who has the disquieting habit of staring at her throughout biology class from underneath his perfectly perfect eyelashes. As Bella is soon to discover, Edward is a vampire. But it's okay; he's a vegetarian. The Cullen family live on woodland animals rather than succumb to their predatory ways. However, any burgeoning romance between Bella and her vampiric beau might just prove too much of a temptation for Edward, who's all too aware of his desire to rip his girlfriend's throat open and drink of her pure virgin blood.

What follows is a chastened romance, full of brooding glances, swooping camerwork and an overwhelming sense of teen angst. Several reviews of the books pointed out their seemingly pro-abstinence agenda. However, coming from a director such as Hardwicke it's difficult to see the film in this way. As she showed in Thirteen, Hardwicke isn't afraid to show teenage sexuality in all its mucky details and although Bella and Edward don't "get it on" per se, the question of sex is never far from the surface and by (wisely) choosing to play the whole thing straight, Hardwicke creates a sense of malevolent sexual tension that is often absent from other movies aimed at a teenage audience.

The performances are rooted in reality, especially Kristen Stewart's jumpy, self-conscious Bella, and Robert Pattison (who's clearly been taking notes from the David Boreanaz school of acting) looks all set to be the new Zac Efron. There are some faults to the finished product, not least of all an occasionally clunky script and some dodgy special effects, but Twilight is a brave move away from the sort of glossy teen cinema we're used to seeing.