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My personal favourite teen movies are feel-good ones or feel-very-bad ones. Clean fun versus sex, drugs and destitution. As a tale of a thirteen-year-old girl veering dangerously off the straight and narrow tracks, Thirteen clearly falls into the latter category.
Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is thirteen (duh), lives with her mother (Holly Hunter) and older brother after her parents’ divorce. She gets good grades at school and has a relaxed relationship with her mother who hairdresses at home to make ends meet. Starting a new year at school, Tracy does her best to become friends with Evie (Nikki Reed), the most beautiful and popular girl at school, and succeeds – unfortunately. Evie is a parent’s worst nightmare as your daughter’s best friend as she tempts Tracy into various excesses and vices, sex, drugs, tongue-piercings and more.
The extreme changes in Tracy’s behaviour do not go unnoticed by her mother whose increasing desperation is excellently portrayed by Holly Hunter and is, in my opinion, the backbone of the film, more so than Tracy’s predicament. It’s a painfully fascinating film to watch as Tracy goes through extreme teen-torment, screaming at her helpless mother and inflicting razor cuts on herself in a locked bathroom.
The film is the directorial debut of Catherine Hardwicke, a former set designer who is in fact Nikki Reed’s stepmother. Apparently Nikki started going off the rails a little herself aged thirteen (she is now still a mere 16) and Hardwicke encouraged her to keep a diary, which they then turned into a screenplay together and gave Nikki her impressive debut role. I think it was a wise choice not to have Nikki play herself (Tracy) as that may have been too close to home to pull it off as convincingly as she does the role of the deceitful and tempting Evie.
The final climactic scene between Holly Hunter and Evan Rachel Wood is excellently acted and really put a lump in my throat – so realistic. If you have a teenage daughter or one who is going to turn thirteen soon, don’t watch this as you may never let her out of the house again.
suzero (90 posts)Suzanna Noort - TV/video director/editor and multimedia something. Amsterdam, Netherlands
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WARNING SPOILERS: Actually, your reaction was a common one, but I think it oversimplifies the mom’s role in the whole business.
I thought the movie did a great job of showing the disolving relationship between the mother and daughter with more than a few clues that the mother’s weak parenting skills, rather than the “tempting Evie” was the primary catalyst for disaster.
Nikki had the cutting her arm thing down to a science, which implied she had been doing it for a long time before Evie stepped onto the scene. I think that suggests some really deep rooted problems were already present in our young, innocent Nikki. I would say that the constant foot traffic through their house, the mom’s continuing battle with addictive behavior, the mom’s inability to say “no” to anyone including her kids, and the son’s (seemingly accepted) drug use all suggested that Nikki’s self mutilation was in reaction to a really sad lack of parental involvement.
Of course, our culture loves to demonize the idea of the sexual young girl as a corrupting force, but let’s get real … Evie was more than a bit tragic as a character herself. I’m not going to get into her sad lack of parental authority figures, but she was desperate for some mom attention, positive or negative.
What I took away from the movie was that as an adult you need work out your own shit before you try and parent. Otherwise you lay the groundwork for “the kid gone out of control.” Maybe this point wasn’t as explicit as it could have been, but that could have something to do with the “real” Nikki’s story being filtered through her “step-mother.”
Comment by marisa — Wed July 28, 2004 @ 15:37MORE SPOILERS: You’re absolutely right. My review was a little thin on the details, but Tracy had indeed been cutting herself long before Evie came on the scene.
I felt that the fact that the mother so obviously had her own issues to deal with made it all the more realistic, but it wasn’t just the mother’s issues, the conspicuously absent dad was equally responsible for Tracy’s self-mutilation. The mother, despite all her faults, did really seem to be making a conscious effort to understand her daughter, not block out the problem.
Seeing a film like this certainly makes me wonder if I should ever have kids. I mean when have we really worked out our shit? When are we really ‘ready’ to be parents? And even if we are the ‘perfect’ parent, it’s still no guarantee things will work out OK for the kid(s) – just look at how different siblings turn out coming from the same family.
Comment by suzero — Wed July 28, 2004 @ 16:52um, i have to agree with you on that, since my 34 year old sibling up and joined the f*ucking U.S. army last year. But I don’t want to get into that nightmare!
Comment by marisa — Thu July 29, 2004 @ 14:37liked this one, although the inevitable moral is dripping all off it… Holly Hunter was amazing, but I also like Nikki Reed over Evan Rachel Wood
Comment by arjan — Sun August 1, 2004 @ 11:07seeing this movie as a teen was a little diffrent then from others point of view(ie adults) for me this one just a story it makes it seem as if many teens are getting this out of control and while i agree that many teens are not getting into more drugs and sex ect. this is onlly an extreme case and really has nothing to do with being a teen but in the situation u are presented with growing up an adulecent
Comment by meagan — Thu July 7, 2005 @ 2:40Is punctuation no longer required in high-school?
Comment by suzero — Thu July 7, 2005 @ 20:54this movie is bangin! i bouhgt it its crzy! lol
Comment by Allie — Tue March 21, 2006 @ 16:04omg this is my favourite film of all time
Comment by dani rox! — Tue July 11, 2006 @ 19:28its so understandable even if you dont go through everything illustrated in this amazing film.
you just know exactly how she feels especially if your 13 when you first see the film.
i went through a phase of watching it almost every day lol
Ooooh i love this film millions!!!!
it definately gets a ***** from me!!
yay xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This was the absolute greaatest movie ever i was just like them at thierteen wow what a trip
Comment by tawni — Fri December 15, 2006 @ 22:29