Review 39: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

I don't know why I bother to be fair and flexible when I review films. I really don't and what a horrible shame to The Twilight Saga.

Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) get married and go off and spend their honeymoon on the Cullens' private Brazilian island.
Two weeks into their honeymoon and after having sex-TWICE, Bella discovers shes pregnant with a fetus growing at an extraordinarily accelerated rate and is killing her from the inside.
Edward rushes her home, but despite protests from the Cullens, Bella refuses to consider having an abortion,
Jacob, (Taylor Lautner) meanwhile, leaves the Quileute tribe and forms his own tribe and allies with the Cullen's to protect Bella.

The previous three Twilight movies have devoted to Bella clinging onto her virginity with the grip of a dead man even though Ed is totally gorgeous. Now in Breaking Dawn - Part 1, in which, to her credit, she holds off her desires until after her wedding. Once she and Ed fly off to Brazil for her honneymoon, they're finally allowed to cut loose and get it on where the morning after her wedding night she's bruised, the bed frame is broken and the room is a complete mess of broken furniture and shredded draperies.

What the Hell Happened? Thankfully we don't get to see and for our sake, it should remain that way.

They have also been about Ed poping the question to Bella many times, now the truth is finally upon them and they can cut loose.

 

Things begin, slow but dreamy and happily enough with the highly anticipated wedding between Bella and Edward, complete with blossom-laden trees framing a lakeside alter, friends, family and maybe a few enemies. The first 30 mins are dedicated to this wedding, everything operates at a slow build and regardless of wether you love or hate the Saga, it is staged like an event.

 

After their honeymoon in pictureque Brazil and Bella comes home pregnant, the film immediatley goes off the rails. During the achingly slow scenes at the Cullen's house, depicting Bella's deterioration as she becomes progressively more skeletal, so little else is happening that film turns into an unbearable slog.

 

The plot idea sounds very splashy, Cronenberg-esque and resembles that of Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist. But where those films played up the horror factor and conveyed the strength of its characters, Breaking Dawn - Part 1 stretches this idea thin and it solely focuses on Bella’s suffering. The result is a depressing experience. Even then, the logic behind Bella’s pregnancy is flimsy, because as a vampire, Edward should not be able to reproduce and is full of venom so by that logic, Bella should’ve turned into a vampire after they consummated their marriage. 

 

Because the birth of whatever is growing inside Bella would break the treaty between the Cullens and the Quileute Tribe (a storyline that never really had much weight to it in the first place), the Cullens are under house arrest whilst they help Bella through her pregnancy. These scenes are slow and uniteresting and the idea of the Quileute Tribe wanting to kill the baby rang false and didn't have the dramatic heft it needed.

  

How is it possible that a film has so much body horror and ends up being so grotesque and dull at the same time?

Once again, Bella’s choice is placed front and centre and that is wether or not she keeps her baby even if it may mean the death of her. The fact that she shows willingness to ensure that her baby lives is testament to her mothers instinct that she’s developed as well as her internal strength and stubbornness. But it also seems to imply, given the way Bella’s pregnancy is depicted in also it’s gratuity, that the narrative leans as much towards taking a life to give life; The life of the fetus is framed as more important than Bella’s.

To quote Alex from Modern Family “That sends an ugly message.”

Ultimately, Bella’s decision to become a vampire isn’t one she makes herself it’s one that’s thrust upon her due to extenuating circumstances which undermines the Saga’s theme of Choice. 

 

On the action front: Two nocturnal wolves-vs.-vamps combat scenes are by-the-numbers and do little to heighten the tension or get the blood pumping.   

Director Bill Condon's direction is wonkily uneven, although he resplendently stages the wedding and displays a keen eye for location, he falls into kind of stupor during the second half and does little to liven up the drawn-out, hackneyed story.  

The birth scene is the emotional climax of the film; a seemingly unending bombardment of gore and strobe lighting that that hits you over the head like a tone of bricks which is unbearable to watch and beyond the outer limits of the PG-13 rating.  

Oh the movie is well made; the production design (particularly the wedding set which is in a very romantic wood with blossom-laden trees, branch benches that look as if they've come out of the ground and flower laden moss paths and honeymoon) is marvellous. When Bella and Ed go on the honeymoon in Brazil, they’re set up in a picturesque beach house with wood panelled furniture white linen cushions and beds. The special effects are splendid, the locations are breathtaking, the cinematography is gorgeous and captures the beautiful, lush landscapes of Brazil and Forks, the score by Carter Burwell is beautiful, the make up is rich and the costume design is fabulous.

The effect of ending scene is unsettling in all the wrong ways; An overhead camera zooms in on a rejuvenated Bella as a her eyes pop open. What will be her first thoughts after her ordeal? How different a person will she be? Bella has always had a certain saccharine, masochistic appeal. I dread to think what they’ve replaced that with. 

The acting was weak, Kristen Stewart appears to be trapped in a brainless movie. The featus, as Carlisle (an otherwise strong Peter Facinelli) tells her isn’t compatible with her body. Yet Bella never considers not carrying out the pregnancy even though her life is clearly at risk. Bella takes zero self-preservation to prepare for the worst. Motherhood is an interesting direction to take Bella in but it feels less like a character trait and more like Stephanie Meyer (a self described Mormon) projecting herself and her personal belief onto the narrative. Bella solely lives to get pounded really hard during vampire sex and suffer

 

Robert Pattinson’s Edward comes of as a woose, in a film that gives him little too do other than berate Bella and feels powerless to offer her any reprieve from the threat inside her. His earlier scenes with Ms. Stewart do little to convey the “crackling” chemistry between them and his constant refraining from knobbing Bella doesn’t help.

  

I've saved Taylor Lautner as Jacob Black for last because he is the true star of the film and his character's arc is the one of the three leads that truly reasonates with me and goes to a very logical place. Even though he has become the looser of the Love Triangle, he's gotten to a place where he is able to overcome his prejudice against the Cullen Clan so that he can help Bella during her "pregnancy" and comes to accept the Cullen's as friends. Becoming the Alpha of his own little pack consisting of Leah (Julia Jones) and Seth (Boo Boo Stewart) also forces him to mature and deal with a new set of responsibilities to others as well as himself.

The other standout is Nikki Reed as Rosalie, who becomes Bella's guardian when she becomes pregnant and respects her choice to keep the baby even though giving birth may kill her. As someone who wanted kids but now can't have them, she has a lot of empathy towards Bella's plight.  

 

Elsewhere Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Ashley Greene, Kellan Lutz, Jackson Rathbone, Billy Burke, Sarah Clarke, Chaske Spencer, Kiowa Gordon, Tyson Houseman, Alex Meraz, Booboo Stewart and Julia Jones round out the cast with thankless performances but are ultimately left without much to do.

 

Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is so lifeless and dull, I can't recommend it, even on an ironic level, 1.5/5.
  
The Anonymous Critic