The Twilight Saga – Breaking Dawn Part 1

“You’d think I’d be used to telling you goodbye by now”, werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) says to Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) in an already-iconic scene in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1. If only audiences could finally bid the whole franchise farewell, the contemporary film landscape would be vastly improved.

In the latest installment of the Twilight films, inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s underwritten novels, Bella and undead Edward Cullin (Robert Pattinson) finally tie the knot. The wedding is beautiful. Bella’s dress is beautiful. Kristen Stewart looks particularly beautiful as she attempts to imbue Bella with her trademark rugged friction. Stewart has always been the strength of this franchise, playing Bella tough instead of fragile. When the films were about fluffy teen romance, it was a welcome surprise to see a this truck-driving tomboy pursued by a boy who looks like Pattinson. The charms of that flirtation do not extend to watching these two characters get married.

Bella is ambivalent about the prospect of marriage; she does not enjoy her lavish wedding. She only wants to be with Edward, and the audience is expected to find virtue in her lack of participation in displays of materialism, however well-deserved they may be. The wedding sequence is difficult to watch despite being the marquee event of the film.

The honeymoon sex is similarly difficult to watch, especially since the movie fails to fill in the gaps in Meyer’s Mormon-inspired writing. The sex itself is painless because Bella waited until marriage, but it is also painful because Edward inadvertently bruises her during the act. It is an odd depiction of submission that is never fully elaborated upon. Unsurprisingly, Bella becomes pregnant right away, and once again her ambivalence clashes with the film\’s basic premise: she had never wanted to get married or have a baby until Edward more or less imposed these circumstances upon her.
Breaking Dawn‘s moral leanings would not be so relevant if Bella exhibited logical character growth or had motivations beyond pleasing Edward. As it is, the movie fails to transcend the weak plotting and aimless vampire/werewolf warfare.