The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Breaking Dawn is artful, tasteful and not a little bit beautiful. Gone are the metrosexual moments of mutual admiration, glaringly homosexual threesomes, and the teenage angst has gone by the wayside. In their place are charming moments, spectacular action sequences, a coherent storyline for younger audiences, and moments of complete and utter romance. With Harry Potter ostensibly gone forever, only the Twihards remain. It took three gruesome and agonizing films to bring us to the promised land, and ladies and gentlemen, welcome Twilight to the discussion of franchises that are not only popular, they are downright lovable.

For those of you that are not avid readers I promise not to disappoint your movie-going lustfulness. There are no major spoilers involving the dramatic ending of Part One. What I want to do is to briefly describe my favorite moments that are coincidentally the major plot points.

The Bella Swan/Edward Cullen wedding is beautiful. Bella's wedding apparel is clearly expensive designer wear. Everyone looks glamorous and happy. The speeches from Bella's classmates and from the coven's elite are indescribably hilarious. Her classmates are bitterly jealous and the vampires are socially inept. This makes for great comedy.

Despite Jacob's green-eyed fear that Edward would rip Bella's vagina into little pieces of bloody femme flesh (sorry for the vulgar image), Bella suffers only skin deep bruises during her first days of intercourse. Edward accidentally dismantles the entire house while thrusting, but hey, aren't all vampires infused with perma-viagra in their bloodstreams? Um hello, Match.com, I would like to pay an additional $14.99 to meet vampire women. Why? Oh, they just sound like nice people. Bella and Edward share a remote and private island in South America courtesy of Carlisle. I suppose when you have been a physician for 200 years one learns a thing or two about saving money?

While on their honeymoon something strange and insidious happens. Bella is impregnated. Nearly everyone in the coven wants the baby slaughtered to prevent a war with the Ouleutes, and more importantly, to save Bella's life. Without vampire blood coursing through her veins, Bella is susceptible to starvation and to bleeding out. While pregnant she withers away. Worst of all, her pregnancy triggers a war between the vampires and the werewolves. According to their treaty a human cannot become harmed or impregnated or else all bets are off. Jacob risks everything to protect his true love, even though he already lost the war of love.

Despite being jilted in a sense, and suffering the pangs of unrequited love, Jacob's sense of loyalty and friendship to Bella is truly prodigious. He defies his entire clan to protect her. Jacob and Edward have something in common that causes a sort of rapprochement; they both love Bella to the death. Jacob causes dissension among the wolves and age old alliances are fractured. His friendship with Bella and consequently with Edward causes all doctrines to be re-written.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One is far less frivolous or melodramatic than its predecessors. Director Bill Condon nicely purged the horrible teenie bopper themes and guided the characters in their effort to act with style and charisma. Nearly every scene is gorgeous and well-orchestrated. Even the otherwise depressing moments are infused with humor to lessen the tension. Breaking Dawn is excellent good fun that will entertain you from start to finish.

A few additional observations for casual moviegoers:

-Kristen Stewart looks positively sizzling. Rather than looking like an anorexic corpse, her body looks flawless and sexy. Of course, later in the film she is made to look like a corpse bride but that is a different story altogether.

-Robert Pattinson is stepping up his game. He appeared to be less infantile and seemed more like a legitimate actor in an awkward role. Perhaps he is ready for spy thrillers after all.

-Taylor Lautner, and I hate to admit this, performed perfectly. I am quietly seething, QUIETLY!

-Not enough credit can be assigned to Director Bill Condon. He not only represented the novel well, he made a mountain out of a molehill with all of these actors.

-I will rejoice rather than cringe when Part Two is released. So long folks!