Thirteen
Movie Review
"Thirteen"
Review by Eric D. Snider
Grade: C
Rating: R
Released: Friday, August 22, 2003
Directed by:
Cast:
Evan Rachel Wood's performance in "Thirteen" is far better than "Thirteen" is. She plays a middle school student named Tracy who is in the painful stage between childhood and adolescence, just learning how to be a woman and doing it all wrong, particularly due to having the wrong person mentoring her. Wood, who is 14, is absolutely fearless in her portrayal of pubescent angst, piercing the film with emotion that is absolutely convincing.
The film, alas, is not as good. Directed by first-timer Catherine Harwicke, it casts about for solid footing and is unable to locate it. The setting is L.A., where society's skewed view of how women ought to be is visible on every billboard and signpost, and that theme is examined very briefly as a factor of Tracy's behavior. Much greater attention, however, is paid to Tracy's friend Evie (Nikki Reed, who co-wrote the screenplay, incredibly), a rootless, amoral "bad girl" who soon has Tracy acting, thinking and dressing just like her. Sex, drugs and stealing are all part of Evie and Tracy's lifestyle, as Tracy's mother Melanie (Holly Hunter, playing yet another put-upon single mom) looks on in distress.
All of this is well and good, but what's the point? If it's a story about the dangerous influence of evil friends -- "Tracy was playing with Barbies before Evie came along!" Melanie yells during a catfight royale with Evie's useless foster parent -- then why the overriding emphasis on Tracy's emotions? The implication starts to be that Tracy would have gone this way anyway, or at least that this is fairly typical rite-of-passage stuff for young girls -- in which case, what purpose does Evie serve in the movie at all? Characters who function only as catalysts don't generally warrant this much screen time.
In the end, I suspect we've been given an accurate representation of the brattiness, rebellion and overwhelming emotion that comes with being a 13-year-old girl. The question is what we, or any of the characters, have learned about it. We've been through an ordeal -- and one thrillingly acted by Wood -- but why?
Grade: C
Rated R, a lot of harsh profanity, some nudity, some strong sexuality, some blood
1 hr., 40 min.
Copyright © Eric D. Snider.
This work may not be transmitted via the Internet, nor reproduced in any other way, without written consent from Eric D. Snider.
This item has 8 comments
January 26, 2007 at 7:28 pm
You seem to not even understand what the movie is about. A. There is a HUGE emphasis on the supermodels and billboards of "ideal women" plastered throughout the movie that influence Tracy greatly.
Evie is there because all teens who go down that path need someone to teach them how. Evie is there to teach Tracy how to do things and how to be things. Are you saying Tracy should have had no friends and taught herself and brought herself down this path? The movie is meant to be real, which, as a teenage girl I can say it is one hundred percent.
If you paid attention, there are MANY lessons. For teenagers, for parents, for teachers, etc..., but you won't see that if you don't understand the point of the movie. Which you clearly did not even attempt.
The reason so much attention is placed on Evie is because Evie is also one of the main people in the movie, along with Tracy and Melanie.
January 29, 2007 at 4:18 pm
The above comment is AWESOME.
"The reason so much attention is placed on Evie is because Evie is one of the main people in the movie..."
WTH? Funny stuff.
March 22, 2007 at 9:10 pm
i think the movie is true to life, mabye not the "normal" thing that happens to teenagers but shows the extremes that some girls go through when there life and finding themselves get too much.
You havent really looked into what the movie is about.
October 10, 2007 at 12:58 pm
I agree, 100%, this movie was a [swear word] [swear word]house. It made me lose a lot of my faith in humanity. It didn't convey any of the "lessons" Andrea K. speaks of, it simply glamorizes this kind of stupid [swear word] behavior. Both of them should have died in the end, to relieve society of having [swear word] like Evie and Tracy have to share the earth with competent human beings.
October 29, 2007 at 6:22 pm
The very first comment has pretty much said things for me!!!!
Review is correct in some ways, evan rachel wood has given the most talented performace i have ever seen of someone her age! a wonderous actress!
I believe the director successfully tackled and displayed realistic portryals of pubescent life for teenage girls!! i also believe she casted fabulously!!
The editing was superb because it built up tension and you suddenly felt traceys (evan rachel wood's) emotions and you suddenly felt what it is or what it was life to be someone of that age!
i am currently 17 and have not experienced the things the character tracey has! partly because i am not a girl!
It was overall a good movie and how the characters developed throughout the course was truly believable!!!
November 24, 2007 at 7:13 pm
as myself watching this movie it was very tense but yet very good because it is showing what most teenagers do. not many though start doing what tracy and evie do at the age of thirteen most start maybe in highschool. i experienced things that they have gone through so i can very much relate to it. over all the movie showed me that gettin involved with those type of drugs and other things can really destroy the person you are and you may need to get some serious help if you cant stop.
July 18, 2008 at 3:52 am
I have seen this movie so far two times once a year or two ago and again a few moments before writing this comment. I am a 15 year old female living close to the area that evie and tracy lived in the movie and quite frankly this movie is my favorite. When I first saw this movie it caught my attention automatically not knowing i would somewhat live it out exactly how it's portraid. I've had friends like evie and in some circumstances maybe i've been an "evie." I don't understand why people who clearly have no type of connection or experiences to the movie or even an understanding would even state their opinion. It hurt me by reading these comments to think that society is so blind to how today really is that they don't want to except reality and that is also a reason to what makes most of us teenage girls this way. I'd like to state that my life is still going through some patches and still in that place of Tracy or Evie, but I know i will rise above what the anger inside of me tells me to do. It actually had many lessons, as in not to trust friends as much as u'd like to, to try and be urself rather than trying to be like what u think is "cool" especially with how the media portrays what's in and out today, to communicate with ur family better, and for parents to not try to ignore what's going yet not be so strict on their children because i can guarantee it's only going to want ur kid to WANT to explore even more or want to rebel. The reason Evie has such a great role because not only does she make the movie what it is by showing how friends turn out to be to eachother by turning against tracy out of anger but there is a backround to what makes evie the way that she is, which is told by herself throughout the movie. I always say for every cause there is an effect, there is always a reason to why a person is the way they are. If you do not like the movie than do not watch it, your mind is obviously not open enough to serious situations that actually goes on TODAY, at first I thought maybe 13 is a little to young but than thinking twice on that thought, im 15 and started around 14 being introuduced into a faster crowd and always trying to fit in or to stand out, either way it's a stressful process especially for me being a grade ahead and being introduced to highschool earlier than most and since a very young age have always hung out with kids older than me. Therefore the age in which situations like this happen start younger and younger.
August 15, 2008 at 7:37 am
I think the review was spot-on.
This movie tries so hard to shock its audience, showing us images of strung-out prepubescent girls hitting each other in the face while in a nitrous haze, getting piercings from shady characters with questionable credentials, dressing like hookers, prepositioning older neighbor boys for three ways...
It shows us the "shocking truth" about WHAT teenagers today are doing, all the while merely flirting with the deeper issue of WHY. Ooo let's blame the hot succubus of the 7th grade (I think it's hilarious that the co-screenwriter just so happens to play the "hottest girl in school")! Or the media! Yes, let's blame the media. I'll tell you the truth, teenage girls are victims of their OWN narcissism, their own greed, and their own unwillingness to think for themselves. I would know, because I am one.
I'm 17 years old, and I've "been through" some of the things that these girls have experienced in my not-so-distant past. I've had home piercings before (and as "shocking" as the piercing bits are played out in this movie, the piercings themselves are not so vile as the underlying glee that these girls feel that they are pulling the wool over their parents' eyes), and experienced that "everythings like whomp whomp whomp" feeling..but do I feel that this movie accurately portrays why kids like me do the things we do? No way. I see the protagonist of this movie as a spoiled, bratty lemming. Sure, Tracy's home life sure is painted as tumultuous, thanks in part to the gratuitous self-mutilation bits. But it's not like she truly is lacking love and support from her mother. Holly Hunter was probably this movie's saving grace, bearing Melanie's scars as a deeply flawed individual who loves her children but knows nothing about them. Beyond that, the character development was as shaky as the cameraman's hands...Tracy's decline is ridiculously rapid, and in the end, she suffers little-to-no consequences for her actions.
This movie, while a nice try at "gritty realism," was strongly lacking in actual substance.