Themes: Peer Pressure, Kids in Trouble, Drug/Alcohol Experimentation
Main Cast: Holly Hunter, Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Sisto, Brady Corbet
Release Year: 2002
Country: US
Run Time: 100 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Prolific production designer and art director Catherine Hardwicke makes her directorial debut with the coming-of-age drama Thirteen. Los Angeles teenager and overachiever Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is an excellent student in her seventh grade class and gets along well with her mother, Melanie (Holly Hunter). She fears that she's not cool enough to be friends with Evie (Nikki Reed), the most popular girl in school. Fueled with genuine adolescent energy, Tracy follows Evie's lead into the harsh realities of sex, drugs, and hard-edged adventure. Consumed with temptations and conflicting desires, Tracy loses her good-girl identity, greatly affecting her relationship with her mom. Partly autobiographical, Thirteen was co-written by Hardwicke and actual 13-year-old Reed, who are close family friends. Originally intending to write a teen comedy, they ended up creating a hard-hitting drama exposing the contemporary teenage experience. Thirteen was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival, with Catherine Hardwicke taking home the Director's Award. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Review
The reassuring thing about Thirteen is that it's not another Kids-style exploitation piece with naked teenagers running around in their underwear under the pretense of realism. Instead it ends up being a one-dimensional cautionary tale told in an after-school special kind of way, like a super intense episode of Degrassi Junior High. Partly written by teenage co-star Nikki Reed and filmed with a constantly moving handheld camera, the story spins out of control just like its skinny blonde protagonist, Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood). The central friendship seems contrived right from the start because Evie (Reed) is a manipulative liar from beginning to end, making it difficult to see her as a fully developed character. Their sexed-up romping through L.A. says much more about the highly marketable Southern California lifestyle than it does about the realities of adolescent friendship. It may capture the quick pace of the whirling, confusing mess of being 13, but it doesn't require the viewer to become emotionally involved. The adult characters are more sympathetic, or at least more nuanced. Holly Hunter puts in a great performance as Tracy's mom, a wounded yet fun-loving single mother with too much love to give. As a vulnerable acceptor of Evie's lies, she seems to suffer the most. Even though Tracy's behavior suggests that she too is suffering, the film never reveals where her anger is coming from. Her self-mutilation and hatred for her mom's boyfriend aren't investigated deeply, just smoothed over with fashion, lip gloss, and accessories. Maybe that's the point: teenagers use their buying power to express their pain. Focusing on all things superficial must be part of an examination of contemporary youth culture, but this film barely goes below the surface. ~ Andrea LeVasseur, All Movie Guide
Thirteen (styled as thirteen) is a 2003drama film co-written and directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and co-written by Nikki Reed. It is an autobiographical film based on Reed's life at age 12 and 13. The script was written in six days and originally meant to be a comedy.[1] The film caused controversy upon its release, because it dealt with topics such as underage sexual behavior along with drug and alcohol abuse and self-mutilation.
Evie and Tracy skip school to run around downtown Los Angeles.
Thirteen-year-old Tracy Louise Freeland (Evan Rachel Wood) writes poetry and is a straight-A student. Her divorced mother Melanie (Holly Hunter) is a recovering drug addict and high school dropout who struggles as a hairdresser to support Tracy and her older brother Mason (Brady Corbet). At Portola Middle School in Los Angeles, she is teased about her "cabbage patch" clothes by more popular girls. Melanie buys Tracy new clothing items from a discount vendor in a van. Thus clothed and much to her delight, Tracy is invited by Evie Zamora (Nikki Reed), one of the most popular girls at school, to go shopping on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Although Evie gives her a disconnected telephone number as a mean-spirited joke, Tracy takes a bus to Melrose Avenue anyway, where she finds Evie and a friend shoplifting. Tracy later steals a woman's pocketbook while she is distracted and the girls go on a shopping spree, whereafter Tracy and Evie become best friends and Evie moves into the Freeland house.
Meanwhile Tracy is angered by and torn between her divorced parents, both of whom are struggling to get by. Unknown to her mother, Tracy has been cutting herself as a way to cope with her stress. Tracy neglects her old friends and at home taunts Melanie's boyfriend, a former cocaine addict (Jeremy Sisto). Melanie sees hints of what is happening with the two girls but is unable to stop them, further thwarted by Evie's manipulative but likely truthful claims of an abusive childhood. As Tracy steadily shuts Melanie out of her life, Tracy and Evie become very close, even talking to each other in their own ludling language. However, after the early thrills, Tracy's newfound popularity does not make her happy.
In one scene, underage Evie and Tracy try to seduce Luke (Kip Pardue), a lifeguard in his early twenties who is a friend of Mason's. Drawn at first into their kisses, Luke throws them out of his house and soon after moves away. One night in Hollywood, Mason and a friend make comments about a cute girl who has her back to them. When she turns around and answers with a scathing remark, Mason is shocked to see this is his sister, with a belly ring. In another scene, the two girls take turns inhaling from a can of gas duster and become so high they laughingly hit each other for kicks, drawing blood.
Melanie is not aware of how deeply the girls have fallen into petty crime and drug abuse, but seeing the harmful impact Evie is having on their lives, takes Evie back to live with Brooke (Deborah Kara Unger), her guardian. Tracy seems to agree with this step, after which Evie betrays her at school.
After failing seventh grade, Tracy comes home one day to find Evie, Brooke, and Melanie waiting for her. When the women confront Tracy about the girls' drug use and stealing, Tracy angrily blames Evie. Brooke says Tracy was the bad influence and that they are moving to Ojai to get away from her. Melanie stands up for her daughter, saying Tracy was "playing with Barbies" before she met Evie. Brooke grabs Tracy and pulls her sleeve up to show Melanie the many cuts and long scars on her daughter's left arm. Horrified, Melanie tells Brooke and Evie to leave. Both mother and daughter weep on the kitchen floor as Melanie kisses her daughter's heavily cut arm. Although Tracy tearfully pleads with her mother to let go of her, Melanie holds on tight and they wind up in Tracy's room where they carry on hugging and fall asleep. The movie ends the next morning as Tracy wakes up with a start. Tracy later spins alone on a merry-go-round in the park, screaming.
Thirteen received positive reviews. The film is currently rated as 82 percent "certified" fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, including 89 percent fresh among cream of the crop critics[2] and a 77 percent fresh among the Rotten Tomato community.
^ 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment DVD video release, Thirteen (audio commentary by Hardwicke, Reed, Wood and Corbet), UPC/EAN: 024543106586, 27 January 2004
