Kirsten Stewart plays Bella, a shy girl trying to overcome the family fracas. On the first day of school she comes across an incredibly pale boy, Edward (Robert Pattinson). Her heart skips a beat as he looks deep into her inhibited eyes. Edward turns out to be a vegetarian vampire. Yes, this is also a category..…vampires who thrive on animal blood though they find human blood more satisfying.

As the love story moves to the next level, Edward can’t afford to lose control because if he does there is every possibility he will end up killing Bella – time for some poignant moments of self-restraint and teenage confusion which fortunately never get syrupy or condescending.

Things are going just fine as Edward shows his beloved the magic of his prowess. Catherine has crafted the scenery a touch dark and gloomy with threatening skies and lush greenery. Even as the two are figuring out the intricacies of a human-vampire romance, their smouldering romance gets a rude shock. A group of wicked vampires who haven’t lost the taste for human blood cross the couple’s path. One of them wants to make Bella his prey and there starts the bloody battle, which is expected to continue in the forthcoming sequels.

Take a bite if you will, it is fresh and fleshy!

This is what you call utilisation of technology. When more and more contemporary directors are consumed by animated dimensions of technology, Robert Zemeckis is a clever exception. He simply uses it to enhance the impact. Remember Polar Express? Here he uses the same motion-capture animation to bring alive Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol as the author must have visualised it.

No point repeating the timeless story which shows a mirror to our innermost ghosts. Scrooge is suitably more miserly, meaner and courtesy Jim Carrey, who is there somewhere beneath the computer-generated layers, all the more flexible despite the ripe old age. Carrey also disguises himself as the three spirits which haunt Scrooge and ultimately lead him to redemption.

The effect-ridden conceit doesn’t distance us from the spirit of the story; only the spirits have become jolly well majestic. Kids might find some of the wizardry scary but then Zemeckis wants parents to not only accompany but indulge.

Whistle blowers make for interesting stories in newspapers. Business frauds are reserved for the bland business pages. Here you have director Steven Soderbergh drawing liberally from pages of recent history and turning a corporate fraud involving the highest ranking whistle blower in US history into a breezy dark comedy.

Matt Damon gives a persuasive performance as he puts on weight and a moustache to play Mark Whitacre, a senior executive at an agricultural conglomerate that is engaged in a price-fixing scam. Whitacre volunteers to spill the beans about his company’s malpractices to the FBI and even agrees to help them with their investigation by becoming a sort of secret agent himself. Even as the FBI cracks the case, the investigators are shocked to discover that Whitacre himself has embezzled over nine million dollars from the company’s coffers.

You could not figure out till the very end whether Mark is essentially naïve, a compulsive liar or a scheming executive who wants to climb the corporate ladder by hook or by crook. Full credit to Matt for effortlessly bringing out the man behind the multiple masks. The way he has brought out the psychological intensity of the character is laudable.

The film is a lesson in screenplay writing: you seldom find films which surprise you at every turn. This one does, and does it with unrestrained charm. Don’t miss it.

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