You know you’re watching a very special love story when

• the boy wears more foundation and lipstick than the girl,


• the boy’s body quivers and his face contorts – as
  if he was having an massive orgasm – when he meets the
  girl for the second time,


• and their romance is so amazing that the two may never have
  sex together.

The love story we’re talking about is, of course, Twilight,
about a young vampire’s tragic love for a human girl. Based
on Stephenie Meyer’s blockbuster novel for young adults,
the film has already made a killing at the American box-office
and is set to suck some serious box-office blood in the rest
of the world.

The strikingly handsome Robert Pattinson plays Edward, a vampire
masquerading as a human boy in the school where the new girl
Isabella (lovely Kristen Stewart) has come to study. The attraction
is instantaneous, but Edward seems determined to avoid her at
first.

When the two do get to know each other, sparks fly. And really,
in one scene, sparks literally appear on Edward’s skin.
But he is a vampire, and she is but a human
girl, so their love is as doomed as Jack and Rose’s, or
Romeo and Juliet’s, or Tristan and Isolde’s, or others
of that ilk.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Twilight is a terrific
popcorn movie that derives most of its appeal from the convincing
performances of, and chemistry between Robert and Kristen. As
they look deeply into each other’s eyes, their budding
romance is the stuff of all teenage fantasies.

As potentially corny as their roles sometimes demand them to
be (“Look vulnerable, Kristen!”,“Flare your
nostrils, Robert!”), the two actors make the material work.
They pour flesh and blood into their characters, and make Edward
and Isabella the sexiest tragic lovers on screen since Leo DiCaprio
and Claire Danes in Romeo + Juliet.

Whether you’re a gay man or a grown woman, go watch Twilight and
let it bring out the teenage girl in you. If the movie can’t
do it, maybe the rows and rows of teenage girls shrieking every
15 minutes just might.