Thirteen

As I understand it, the process that produced this movie as its end result was not the typical Hollywood story. Nikki Reed was going through some massively difficult times, some tumultuous transformations, and some traumatic experiences. Feeling lost, she oddly goes to her father’s girlfriend, Catherine Hardwicke. Hardwicke encourages her to write about her experiences in a diary, but Reed writes a screenplay instead. It’s largely autobiographical. She shows it to Hardwicke, and they fine-tune it and polish it up. About a year later, they shoot the movie, Hardwicke directing and Reed playing one of the leads. In reality, Reed had a friend that got her involved in sex, drugs, theft, lying, and all the other things you don’t want your teenager doing. In the movie, Reed plays the part of that friend.

The part based on Reed is played by Evan Rachel Wood. In the beginning of the movie, neither character is very well developed at all. None of the cast is, really. Because of that, it took a while for us as the audience to buy into the characters’ actions. We get kind of a documentary feel to it, sort of like Kids, but it’s just a little too contrived and perfectly shot to make the feeling 100% like Kids. The similarities between that movie and Thirteen are quite striking, not the least of which is the stylish, MTV quality to the cinematography. All the trappings of teenage-ism are there (irresponsible sex, petty crime, makeshift drugs, piercings, staying out late). They’re not presented as being fun or glamorous, but the great consequences that such actions carry are never brought to full fruition, either.

The biggest problem with this movie is that the plot doesn’t have proper flow, and even worse, rhyme or reason. Instead of being directed on a somewhat consistent path, Thirteen feels like it’s jerking us around. This isn’t the intent of the screenplay, but a lack of skill on the part of the screenwriters. That being said, the performances are anywhere from pretty good to fabulous. Evan Rachel Wood in particular is phenomenal as Tracy. She is totally sold out to her role, and is entirely convincing, perhaps because she was so close to the age that she was playing. Nikki Reed is even more convincing, though significantly less skilled as an actress. Reed’s portrayal of Evie is dead-on because she actually did a lot of the things that Evie does in the movie. Holly Hunter is great as Mel, Tracy’s mom who means well, but has absolutely no control over her daughter. I really appreciated that the central characters didn’t seem like cardboard cutouts, that they actually had a little depth. However, that depth was injected by the actors instead of the screenplay.

Another problem with the film is that it didn’t have a very good resolution. Honestly, I got about halfway through it and started think it couldn’t possibly have a good resolution that wasn’t completely cheesy and unconvincing, two things that the movie definitely was not. The fact that the teenagers in this movie get involved with the things they do is terrifying to me, but not at all surprising. Kids are growing up a lot faster than they used to, but at the same time, they’re not. They are dealing with very adult things and situations, a lot of the time willingly, but not doing it as adults. Nine times out of ten, they are flagrantly irresponsible with the power granted to them (sometimes unwittingly) by their parents. Well, I don’t want this review to turn into a diatribe on parenting techniques, since I have absolutely no grounds to speak on that subject.

In short, this movie had an important thing to say, but I had already heard it from many other sources, not just film. It didn’t educate me, and it didn’t even entertain me all that much. Mostly I was just saddened by seeing a girl go exactly where I knew she would go. I do, however, think this would be a worthwhile film for a parent and a teenager to watch together, and then talk about afterward.

Iconic lines:
“Mothers, lock up your sons!”
“No. Bad. Danger, Will Robinson, danger. You’re jailbait.”
“I love you and your brother more than anything in the world. I would die for you, but I won’t leave you alone right now."

22 Rating: 2

Particle Man