Movie Review: The Twilight Saga - New Moon
Kevin Longrie
Issue date: 11/24/09 Section: Entertainment
After a scuffle with Jasper, the perpetually constipated member of the Cullen family, Edward begins to doubt his ability to protect Bella. Though she is eager to file the incident under 'bloodthirsty misunderstanding,' Edward's not taking any chances.
He tells her that he's leaving, and that they will never see each other again; what's more, he adds a few lines of feigned scorn-go on, get!-to their break-up which, inexplicably, takes place deep in the woods.
Months pass, cameras spin, and still Bella seems no closer to dealing with the break-up in a healthy way. She wakes up screaming and pounding her chest so often that her father suggests she move back to her mother's and start therapy. But Bella soon finds two ways to dull the heartbreak, at least enough to keep her father from noticing.
The first, and by far the most disturbing way, is by putting herself in situations of increasing danger-crashing motorcycles, cliff-diving, almost being date-raped by a biker-in order to summon up an incorporeal version of Edward that, like a semaphore, seeks to flag her in the right direction. What she calls being an "adrenaline junkie," the process of inflicting pain upon herself or placing herself in close proximity with danger, is practically a stand-in for cutting. If you hurt yourself, the film suggests, he'll HAVE to notice you.
Her friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the second and less physically compromising distraction, is also growing up. His affection for her, which has been apparent since the first film, is channeled into a pair of motorcycles she saves from the junkyard with her disposable income. They fill up their afternoon hours with this project, giggling through grease and bad puns.
And though Jacob now sports an impressive set of abs, the gratuitous exposure of which left theaters nationwide in a damp frenzy, Bella keeps him at arm's length. Her feelings for Edward wrestle down her budding feelings for Jacob, and triumph for the better part of the film.
He tells her that he's leaving, and that they will never see each other again; what's more, he adds a few lines of feigned scorn-go on, get!-to their break-up which, inexplicably, takes place deep in the woods.
Months pass, cameras spin, and still Bella seems no closer to dealing with the break-up in a healthy way. She wakes up screaming and pounding her chest so often that her father suggests she move back to her mother's and start therapy. But Bella soon finds two ways to dull the heartbreak, at least enough to keep her father from noticing.
The first, and by far the most disturbing way, is by putting herself in situations of increasing danger-crashing motorcycles, cliff-diving, almost being date-raped by a biker-in order to summon up an incorporeal version of Edward that, like a semaphore, seeks to flag her in the right direction. What she calls being an "adrenaline junkie," the process of inflicting pain upon herself or placing herself in close proximity with danger, is practically a stand-in for cutting. If you hurt yourself, the film suggests, he'll HAVE to notice you.
Her friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the second and less physically compromising distraction, is also growing up. His affection for her, which has been apparent since the first film, is channeled into a pair of motorcycles she saves from the junkyard with her disposable income. They fill up their afternoon hours with this project, giggling through grease and bad puns.
And though Jacob now sports an impressive set of abs, the gratuitous exposure of which left theaters nationwide in a damp frenzy, Bella keeps him at arm's length. Her feelings for Edward wrestle down her budding feelings for Jacob, and triumph for the better part of the film.
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