Twilight is based on the first in a series of popular vampire/romance novels by Stephenie Meyer. Adapted for the screen by Melissa Rosenberg (Dexter) and directed by Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen), this is a gothic-lite tale of forbidden love between a young vampire and a teenage girl. It’s a curiously old-fashioned film, free of sex and violence; more Barbara Cartland than Buffy, awash with misty forests, grey skies, cadaverous boys and pale girls. There are no fangs, though nostrils flare and hearts smoulder.

The film’s heroine is 17-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a pale, shy and intense girl who doesn’t quite fit in but isn’t a total outsider, either. Bella’s life changes when she moves from sunny Phoenix, Arizona, to live with her dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), in the small, rainy town of Forks, Washington. As the new girl in school, she is the subject of great curiosity and finds immediate acceptance: girls want to be her best friend, boys want to date her. But she’s not interested in anyone until, across a crowded cafeteria, she catches sight of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). It’s an oh-my-God! moment that has had American teenage girls swooning in the aisles. Edward has the white pallor of a corpse, the mauve lips of a decadent, the broody disquiet of a James Dean and the erect hair tufts of the band Split Enz.

Later, when they meet in biology class, she looks at him and is bowled over; he looks at her and retches. (We subsequently learn he could smell her blood and wanted her so much he felt physically sick.) Most girls would have been put off by such a reaction and dismissed Edward with a withering “He’s so gay!”. Butnot Bella. Rosenberg’s screenplay never allows Bella - or anybody - humorous asides. She knows teenage girls don’t want ironic winks or knowing references: they want forbidden love without any frills or funny business, thank you.

Hardwicke’s film is interesting not because it does anything new with the vampire myth but because it challenges modern myths about the young - in particular, the popular notion that they have short attention spans that require fast-moving plots, furious editing and lashings of violence and sex. In pace and energy, Twilight is funereal. It moves slowly, happy to take its time to set up the relationship between the would-be lovers. I kept waiting for the action to begin, for Bella to mutate into a Buffy-like butt-kicker and for Edward to start in with his lethal biting. But conversation and anguished, quivering looks dominate the first half of the film.

Eventually, Bella discovers Edward is a vampire. (When saving her life, he displays his superhuman powers.) He in turn confesses his love for her, but tries to put her off with the truth: I’m a killer, he says. Bella doesn’t care and, in effect, declares that, man or monster, she loves him. They soon find out that forbidden love is fraught with all sorts of perils. She faces prejudice from his vampiric family and the possibility of becoming the next meal of a rogue vampire from another coven.

However, the biggest challenge they face is sex - and the agony and ecstasy of abstinence. Hardwicke constantly teases her audience, preparing them for the lovers’ first kiss and then withdrawing their longing lips at the last moment. Edward is worried that, once excited by a kiss, he may move in for the kill, literally. “I don’t know if I can control myself,” he tells the aroused Bella and refrains from going any further.

The trouble with Twilight, though, is that it’s the High School Musical of the horror genre. Sweet and safe, devoid of transgression and trauma, it’s all timid teenage goo, which no doubt will go down a treat with girls in that age group.

The cast is good, especially Kristen Stewart, and Pattinson is cute. But Edward is such a gothic goody-goody, he has no edge. He doesn’t kill humans or drink their blood; he’s caring, sharing, sensitive, protective, adoring and always loves the way Bella smells. What’s more, he’s a true gent when it comes to sexual restraint. The film wants Edward to be the Other, but not so other you couldn’t bring him home to meet your folks and charm your mum.

What’s missing is the tragic element in his situation. The film’s tag line raises the interesting question: when you live for ever, what do you live for? But it’s a question Twilight has no interest in answering. Edward is condemned to eternal life, and the worst thing you can say about eternal life is that, well, the food is awful, school’s a drag and being permanently 17 is a bummer. But then every tormented teenager thinks that.

12A, 122 mins

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