Puddles of Infatuation

by MOLLY LANGMUIR

New Moon

dir. Chris Weitz

130 minutes

I want to get one thing out of the way up front. The whole Christian values, abstinence thing feels a little heavy handed in the movie. Oddly enough, it didn’t really hit me when I read the book. I mean, sure, Bella and Edward can’t have sex until she changes into a vampire, and sure, that event is supposed to happen directly after they get married, but this is only because as long as Bella’s still human, Edward’s desire for her blood means he’d probably rip her to shreds if he got too turned on. And that’s sort of hot, right?

But on the big screen it’s harder to watch two obviously lustful teenagers (even if one is actually a centenarian stuck in a 17-year-old body) discuss Edward’s decision not to drink human blood in the following manner without twittering just a little about what “it” might really refer to.

Bella: How do you do it?
Edward: Years and years of practice.
Bella: Did you ever think of doing it the easy way?
Edward: No, I knew who I wanted to be.

This isn’t what I want to talk about, though, mostly because everyone else already has. Besides, while I don’t much like being preached to (particularly where pre-marital sex is concerned) one consolation is that the unmarried (as yet!) actors who play Edward and Bella are probably boning right now in a hotel somewhere, at least according to In Touch.

I also don’t want to talk about how bad the movie was, even though that’s what everyone else has said too. Because, honestly, I think it provides exactly what it promises. That is, it delivers an incredibly faithful adaption of the book and depicts teenage romance in all its overwrought, hormone-raging, I’ll-probably-die-without-you and-I’ll-definitely-never-love-again glory. This is especially impressive considering the storyline’s fairly severe handicap—that the two main characters spend most of it apart.

The movie begins with Edward leaving Bella, ostensibly to protect her. Edward then moves to some favela in Rio, at least according to the movie. Here New Moon does diverge from the book, where Edward gallivants around in exotic locales hunting large game, a version I greatly prefer.

Meanwhile, the audience is asked to consider a new love interest for Bella—hot-blooded werewolf Jacob. I found this aspect of things slightly confusing, because Jacob is funny and warm and confident and if I had to choose one person to spoon with for the rest of time I would probably choose him over anemic stony Edward.

Bella, however, is lovesick for Edward, and spends a great deal of her time either writhing in agony or staring moodily out the window. “Sometimes you have to learn to love what’s good for you,” Bella’s dad tells her at one point, and as someone who has not been a teenager for over a decade, I found this a sage piece of advice. Of course as a teenager I would have completely disregarded it.

New Moon is based on a teenager’s understanding of the world. This is enjoyable because I fondly remember when I used to see things this way, and also slightly troubling, because if I’d stuck with that worldview I would still be mooning after my first serious boyfriend, who left me for camp. I couldn’t help but wonder if all the teenage girls in the theater were having their eventual acceptance of adulthood’s romantic realities deferred a year or two.

You see, what I haven’t mentioned yet is that I have particular insight into Bella’s situation. Just like her, I went to a school where I didn’t really fit in. I soon developed what I thought were world-altering feelings for a young man who seemed altogether way too good for me. He had all the makings of high school fantasy. In my case, this meant he was a handsome, slightly tortured skater who wrote poetry. Every time I saw him I sunk a little deeper into my puddle of infatuation. And then, after a very long time (it felt this way for Bella but in my case it really was) he eventually decided he liked me too. And we totally fell in love and spent a few months making out to The Beatles.

Sometimes he too seemed distant, just like Edward (except this was because he’d been smoking pot and not because he was concerned with protecting me from dangerous monsters). But I would have forgiven him anything, of course, because I was utterly, head over heels in love in a way that only a 17-year-old can be.

I also really wanted to lose my virginity to this boy. And I did, on prom night, of all things. The other movies haven’t come out yet, but suffice to say Edward’s whole marriage plan involves waiting until graduation.

I was ready to drop all other plans for my post high school life to stay with this boy (he was a year behind me). But that summer he went away to be a camp counselor and one day he called to say it was too hard to miss me so much while he was there, and that therefore we had to break up. At this point I responded just like Bella when Edward leaves. More than anything in the world I wanted him to come back to me and realize we were fated to be together forever. This never happened, though, and eventually I got on with things.

Most of the teenage girls I knew at the time experienced some version of this story as well. But most of us also managed to eventually grow out of our teenage versions of romantic bliss (and move on to the version embedded within Jennifer Aniston vehicles, but that’s a whole other story). The movie makes no room for this reality, though, and simply goes about affirming my early conceptions of love with the delicacy of a chainsaw.

Why I would expect New Moon to offer anything other than a superficial take on love? I’m not sure. Maybe my hopes were raised by the way it so perfectly evokes that exact moment when I was experienced enough to understand life was complicated, but naïve enough to believe love, at least, was simple. Giving that idea up was difficult and sad, and remembering how this happened made me want some credit for all the hard won knowledge about love I’ve acquired since then. New Moon doesn’t offer any, but neither do most movies. The only real difference, perhaps, is that other romances are based on fantasies I still sort of believe in.

But I am clearly holding what is essentially a satisfying silly movie to too high a standard. Watching the tidal wave powers of melodramatic teenage love play out in a monster-person sandwich is very entertaining. And while the CGI leaves a bit to be desired (particularly during one odd moment when Edward floats up from the bottom of the ocean only to disappear into what appears to be a cloud of squid ink), the movie remains strangely engrossing. Besides, I have heard it has improved some middle-aged ladies’ sex lives. That is a lot more than you can say for most movies, particularly ones rated PG-13, and tells us something about the enduring power of those first simple fantasies of love.

Molly Langmuir is a contributor to This Recording. This is her first appeance in these pages. She blogs here.

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