carrying the movie on her shoulders. She’s a legitimate star; when teenage boys grumblingly take their dates to see this movie, they might walk away as smitten with Stewart as their girlfriends are with the movie’s Edward, Robert Pattinson.

Pattinson does a good job too; I admired him when he played the doomed Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and here his main strength is his terrific, teen-Kate-and-Leo-level chemistry with Stewart. He seems to be trying to play Edward a little too offbeat, to the point where his first scene ends up being funny when it’s supposed to be mysterious, but frankly, his actual performance is irrelevant. He’s really hot, so he can get away with pretty much anything and his adoring fans will still love him.

Director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen) brings a handheld-camera-style intimacy to main setting, the cloudy town of Forks, Washington, where Bella moves to live with her dad (Billy Burke). The area feels grimy and lived in, the kind of place locals love but outsiders can’t understand.

In Forks, Edward lives with a family of vampires, the Cullens, who he explains are “like vegetarians” — they only feast on animal blood. Other vampires, not so much, particularly a new gang in town which includes hothead James (Cam Gigandet), who’s as sadistic and ravenous as Edward is virtuous and restrained.

Hardwicke’s instincts with teenagers don’t fail her; all the high school scenes are handled in a more realistic manner than your average teen movie, and there’s no forced drama about Bella being “the new kid” — she falls in with a nice (and naturally acted) group of kids pretty easily.

One place where Hardwicke is out of her depth? The special effects. You can also thank the relatively low budget (under $40 million), but some of the wire work (vampires can kind of leap/fly, see) is laughably cheesy, and most of the effects in general look like they belong on old episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and not a major motion picture.

As a 23-year-old male and not a 14-year-old girl, I naturally connected with some elements of the movie more than others. A very strange game of baseball, that ends with a showdown between the Cullens and James’s clan, is kind of rad. Bella’s relationship with her father is well-handled. And I liked a side plot involving some Native Americans who live on a reservation nearby and seem at odds with the Cullens (although if the movie’s trying to keep their “big secret” an actual secret, it does a really bad job. Hint: legend says their tribe is descended from wolves).

The climax feels strangely anticlimactic, sort of like it was shoehorned in just to give the story some action and not just endless scenes

between Bella and Edward. Naturally, James ends up going after Bella and Edward has to save the day, but James is disposed of way too easily.

I said before that the story has never been fully exploited before, but in truth, movies used to center around passionate romances all the time, and to great effect. With the advent of the blockbuster in the ’70s, things started to shift toward boys, toys, space, and explosions, with the occasional, increasingly formulaic chick flick thrown in for “balance.” If Twilight is making the romance relevant again, that’s impressive — and it’s why I was relieved that the movie wasn’t quite as trashy as the books seem to be.

It’s still only “pretty good,” and the anti-feminist undertones still bother me, but the actors and filmmakers raise the quality of their material. And hey, maybe its success can pave the way for something that is good. Or at least give girls and fantasy geeks something to talk about?

Movie Grade: B-

And here’s a completely different take: