Author: Jack Ford

Twilight is completely unsubtle, unevenly directed, is full of annoying characters and clunky, expository dialogue, and has a final third that is weak and nonsensical – and yet all of that is forgivable.

It’s forgivable because the film isn’t really concerned about any of that. It makes clear early on that its main focus is its central relationship between Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson). These characters are well portrayed, played with conviction and the chemistry between them is so strong that every time the pair are on screen together, the film comes to life. This part is so well done that all the other flaws of the film can actually be overlooked.

It’s now been ten years since the big-screen version of Stephanie Myers’ best-selling teen-lit novel was released in the UK. Fans of the book loved it, though it won few newcomers, but the film still went on to be a huge financial success, taking more than $300 million worldwide. This initial success saw it go on to become one of the biggest franchises of the late noughts and early 2010s.

A decade later, however, the Twilight series has become somewhat forgotten, overtaken by the titles that rode in on its coattails (such as The Hunger Games). It has now largely been resigned to a fad, a piece of teen fiction that through sheer hype made it to the big-screen. It may be teen fantasy fiction, but it’s a good example of teen fantasy fiction, and goes deeper than most.

Like the book, the film follows Bella as she starts at a new school in the Pacific Northwest after moving in with her divorced dad. It’s there that Edward, the object of affection of all girls at the school, begins to pursue her, much to her surprise. As the two get to know each other, though, she comes to learn of the dark and potentially deadly secret Edward is trying to keep from her – he is a hundred-year-old vampire.

As Edward, Robert Pattinson is highly convincing as a man who fears his personal baggage would push away the girl he desires. Kristen Stewart, meanwhile, is perfect as a young woman who is feeling unwanted after her parents split up. At first this makes her unwilling to accept Edward’s affections, but in the end she can’t deny her true feelings. 

Both flawed and vulnerable, and willing to admit it, these characters feel accessible and are more drawn out than most of those found in teen love story fare. The connection that forms between the two really comes across on screen (which may or may not have been helped by the couple’s real life relationship).

Much was made of their relationship being chaste – Edward keeps Bella at a distance so as to not give in to his vampiric urges – but this moment also evokes the feeling of entering into a relationship you fear you can’t live up to, with someone you worry you won’t be good enough for.

Much was also made of some of the film’s stilted dialogue. While it’s true that the exchanges between Edward and Bella can be less-than authentic (“You give me everything just by breathing”, “You’re like my own personal brand of heroin”), if intentional, this is the thing that Twilight best gets right – the feeling of being so infatuated with someone you can’t even express it in words.

There are other things that Twilight gets right as well, and not just the minimal use of Taylor Lautner. It’s a film that pitches itself perfectly to its audience.

The filmmakers forgo using lazy pop culture references as a cheap way of conveying the characters ages, and instead have worked to ensure they capture the world and mind-set of late-noughts teenagers without talking down to them. Portraying the imperfections of life and humanity go a long way to give the film a more realistic feeling of the late-teen experience.

Conversely, there’s a lot that Twilight also gets wrong. Aside from some truly cringeworthy moments (the baseball game for one), all of the supporting characters have a single character trait and serve only to flesh out the story. In addition, director Catherine Hardwicke never really seems sure what tone to take, and ends up casting it as a much darker story than it actually is. This results in a somewhat uneven feel.

As the series progressed, there was more that it got wrong. With every future film it got further and further away from what made this first one work so well – Bell and Edward’s relationship. The sequels were less about that and more about further building on its mythology, which is not as interesting and is something not unique to the series that’s been done better elsewhere.

Twilight works best when viewed on its own merits, though. It’s a film made with conviction that knows what it’s trying to be, and because of that holds up to this day. It stumbles at times, but when it’s up and running it manages to bring back those first giddy, excited feelings you can only get from another person that you felt as a teenager.

For one reason or another, not every attempt at a film franchise is successful, but there is a story behind every failure.

Writing under the name Lemony Snicket, Daniel Handler’s A Series of Unfortunate Events series is bleak from the start, where the three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus and Sunny, are orphaned after their parents are killed in a house fire. For the rest of the thirteen books, they are then pursued by the scheming Count Olaf, who is out to get their enormous fortune.

However, it’s that tone that really made the books a success. That and the fact that Handler’s world is unlike any other seen in children’s literature. With a story that is hard to tell in which direction its going, and with dark-arched humour littered throughout, it made readers of all ages keep coming back for more – because that’s what they really are, adult’s books written for children.

The Bad Beginning

Given the number of Unfortunate Events books, it was inevitable, when plans for a film adaptation began, that it would be the first in a series. When the film rights were purchased in 2000 by Nickelodeon and Paramount, it was decided that the first three books would be combined into one film, with the same done for the remaining titles later on.

After Scott Rudin joined as producer, a number of directors expressed interested in the project, with the job eventually going to Barry Sonnenfeld. However, the pair both grew concerned of the way the studio was handling the project – production was moved cross-country to a cheaper location and more and more partners were brought on to raise more money.

The start date for filming was pushed back for more than a year, by which time Rudin and Sonnenfeld had both departed and Brad Silberling had taken over as director. Jim Carry was cast as Count Olaf, with all-star supporting players – Meryl Streep, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Catherine O’Hara, Jude Law – later assembled. Filming finally began in winter 2003, and though lengthy (By the end Liam Aiken, who plays Klaus, had grown taller than his on-screen older sister Emily Browning) went by with little incident.

The film completed, the studio were concerned that it was not family-friendly enough, and had it re-cut. Deleted scenes go to show how much was omitted in order to try and keep it light. It was also heavily marketed, with plenty of tie-in merchandise produced in order to create plenty of excitement for A Series of Unfortunate Events (or to give the film’s somewhat laborious full title, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) when it first opened in December 2004.

The Austere Appraisal

Despite the warning signs of a long and uneasy production and studio interference, the film holds up. (Holds up enough, anyway.)

There’s a lot to like about it: on a technical level, it’s beautifully photographed by Emmanuel Lubezki, Thomas Newman’s wonderful score serves the ominous tone, and Rick Heinrich’s production design is outstanding. With airs of expressionism seem throughout, his environments go a long way into bringing this surrealistic and fantastic world to life.

The script by Robert Gordon (who took over from Handler) does interesting things with the narrative, does well to hold audiences’ interests, and is also genuinely funny. Most importantly, though, it accurately captures the tone and feeling of unease found in the books, as The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr noted: “The movie, like the books, flatters children’s innate sense that the world is not a perfect place and that anyone who insists otherwise is trying to sell you something.“

The arc that connects the three stories together holds up, but at the same time the film can’t quite escape its episodic feeling. The transition from one story to the next is not smooth, and suddenly re-starting the plot and jumping between locations can feel a little jarring. This is something that would have become wearisome had it became a series.

Ultimately, the biggest issue with the film is that it’s unsure of what tone to take. It doesn’t know whether to commit to being either quirky and surreal or dark – leaning more towards the former at the risk of shrinking its potential audience. This uncertainty is personified by Jim Carrey’s Count Olaf, who by turns is a menacing and fearful man, and then doing dinosaur impersonations.

The Grim Greeting

The film was not a failure at the end of its run in cinemas, but it only just made a financial return. It got reasonable reviews, though fans were disappointed that the film was played more for laughs, but the likeliest reason for not performing as well as hoped was that audiences were probably unsure of what to make of it – especially those unfamiliar with the source material.

Despite its lukewarm reception, ASOUE would be nominated in four categories at the 2005 Academy Awards, with Valli O’Reilly and Bill Corso winning the gong for Best Makeup.

Having not been an out-and-out success, plans for a sequel fell by the wayside. Four years after the release of the original, a follow-up was still apparently on the table. Yet internal corporate problems within the studio and the lacklustre performance of the first seemingly dampened any remaining enthusiasm.

One concern regarding a sequel was that the young actors had grown too old to play their parts. Silberling suggested combatting this by having the character of Snicket say, at the top of the second film, that the actors were re-cast as they did not closely resemble the real Baudelaires. Though some were evidently prepared to fight for a sequel, it never materialised.

In 2014, Netflix announced they were producing a full series based on Handler’s books, with Barry Sonnenfeld serving as producer and showrunner. The show, which stars Neil Patrick Harris as Count Olaf and carried the same name as the film, premiered three years later to faint enthusiasm (as does all Netflix series).

While it’s great to see a faithful adaptation to the books doing so well, the film that preceded it should also not be forgotten, if at least for its ambition and unforgettable visual style.