The vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, left) has words with his immortal enemy James (Cam Gigandet) in the teen thriller Twilight. (Summit Entertainment)

There are plenty of things a 17-year-old girl would love to hear when she's trapped alone in the lushly green woods of Washington state with the cutest boy in her school. This is probably not one of them: "I'm the world's most dangerous predator. I'm designed to kill. I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life."

In Twilight, director Catherine Hardwicke conveys the exquisite torture – and the slow boil of lust – that marks first love.

But then most girls aren't Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), the indomitable, love-sick heroine of the gothic teen romance Twilight. And other boys are definitely not like Bella's sweetheart, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a meltingly pretty vampire who smoulders like James Dean. So when Edward asks her if she's scared, Bella's reply is – swoon – "Only of losing you."

Based on the first book in Stephenie Meyer's bestselling young adult saga, Twilight lands in theatres equally blessed and cursed with fevered fan expectations. Wisely, director Catherine Hardwicke (Thirteen, Lords of Dogtown) hews closely to the beloved source; wiser still, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg (Step Up, Dexter) has excised most of the novel's soggy exposition and leavened some of its self-seriousness.

As in the novel, a mid-semester transfer to small-town Forks, Wash., finds loner Bella the object of affectionate attention, circled by an eager new group of Obama Nation-diverse friends. Catching her eye across the cafeteria, though, are the Cullens, a clique of dazzling, alabaster-skinned emo kids, the foster children of a local doctor and his wife. When Bella finds herself seated beside the scruffilicious Edward Cullen in her biology lab, he recoils as if she were a Caesar salad with extra garlic (it's the vampire version of the meet-cute). It's not that he finds her repellent. Just the opposite: She's his favourite dish. But he's on a self-described "vegetarian" diet — he and his principled family of vampires hunt wild animals, not people.

Teen loner Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart, right) falls under the spell of the mysterious Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). (Summit Entertainment)

Afraid of his own desires, Edward tries to scare Bella away, which, of course, only draws her in. (He had her at, "You're like my own personal brand of heroin.") In the book, Edward can come off as a bit of a cold fish. Shrewdly, Pattinson plays him with more blood in his veins, so to speak. He's more manly than effete, and Rosenberg's snappy script even allows him a little playfulness. When he brings Bella home to meet the folks, Edward is as embarrassed as any 17-year-old boy – even one who's been 17 since the Spanish flu epidemic.

For the self-sufficient Bella, who lives with her loving but taciturn single dad (the best thing about him, she says, "is that he doesn't hover"), Edward offers a chance to break through her considerable reserve. Just 17 herself, Stewart is a rare actor who knows how to listen on camera. Her Bella is still and watchful, even though she has terrifying passions roiling just under the surface. It's no wonder Edward's mix of predator and protector is so irresistible. He hangs around in her bedroom while she's sleeping, like a guardian angel checking out the dinner menu. She lets him stay because she trusts (mostly) that he won't transgress, yet hopes (mostly) that he will.

Soon enough, there's real danger to guard Bella from: three bloodsuckers from the wrong side of the tracks have been hunting humans in the area where the Cullens have set up their non-human-devouring vampire idyll. One catches the scent of Bella and decides he'd like a bite, sending her into hiding and the Cullens into hot pursuit, culminating in a standoff that puts Edward a little too close to temptation.

Edward protects Bella in a scene from Twilight. (Summit Entertainment)

Hardwicke's understated palette of cool blues and whites benefits from a gorgeous natural setting. Standing in for Washington state, rain-soaked Oregon is so verdant you can practically see the moss grow. Hardwicke is hindered, though, by a too-polite story, in which there's never quite enough at stake to make the tension palpable. She also lacks the instinct — and, it seems, the budget — for blockbuster effects. Action sequences that ought to soar with the aerial balletics of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon look like cuttings from the edit suite of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Hardwicke is better off when she keeps the actors up close to each other and the camera. She frames her modern-day Romeo and Juliet tightly: Stewart and Pattinson are always just inches apart, but never quite touching. Sensitive to the storm clouds of the teenage psyche, Hardwicke conveys the exquisite torture – and the slow boil of lust – that marks first love without patronizing her audience or her actors. This is a story, after all, that offers up a high school prom as the logical denouement to a vampire showdown. Now that's some enchanted evening.

Twilight opens across Canada on Nov. 21.

Rachel Giese is a writer and editor in Toronto.