Caught in the Craze

The Twilight series of books by Stephanie Meyer is not unfamiliar to the Newton household given the fact that Holly fits perfectly into the teen girl demographic AND she has read all 4 books - in fact I might have even blogged about driving her down to the bookstore at midnight on the Friday night/Saturday morning that the book (Breaking Dawn, in case you really needed to know) was released.

I have been hearing a lot of different reviews and commentary on TV, the radio and even in the newspaper about how this series has the 13-21 year old females under some spell, but also has quite a following with the "Twilight Moms". Not having read the books, I would not consider myself a part of that group, nor am I taken with the love-tortured and angst-filled character of forever-17 year old Edward Cullen. That would be kind of cougar-like and for a variety of reasons, I am going to clearly state how not right that would be.

I provide all of this context because I must now admit that yes, I too was caught in the craze and actually went to see the movie last night. Even odder still, it was kind of fun. Here is the long and the short of it - Holly called me up at about 2:30 pm to tell me that the friend she planned to go see a late showing of Twilight with bailed on her. Holly then called Rachel - with whom she has been sharing the books back and forth - and they decided that they wanted to go. Rachel's mom was going and did I want to come too? At first I thought that it was so sweet that my little angel wanted me to share in this exciting time with her, but then I realized that she and Rachel are under a lot of restrictions with their provisional licenses and since we were going to be out until after 1 am, they both needed rides. Holly never admitted to this being the case, but a mom has got to wonder.

The reasons for the invite become unimportant however, as we did go to the movie and lived the hype. It was social central down at the local movie theater as friends from school kept calling out to Holly asking her if she had seen the movie yet. There was then some amount of squealing (not too much from my kid, whew!) and we pressed on to get our seats.

I will say that all in all, the movie was certainly entertaining so long as you are prepared to deal with a lot of angst, tortured love, pining for what one can't have and dramatic staring. Not the cinematic stunner or literary genius that true epics are considered, but a captivating story acted out by a large collection of 'pretty people' most likely chosen for how they physically depict the characters versus deep acting abilities. Nonetheless, it moved along pretty well considering it's 2-hour run time and seemed to make the many fans in the theater very happy with it's adaptation.

I may actually have to read the books now!