Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
The opening moments of "Thirteen" may cause audience walkouts or, in this case, DVD walkouts. A close-up of a stoned girl is seen as the camera gently sways vertically. Suddenly, we realize she is sitting on her bed and is breathing in gas from a can of compressed air and sharing it with another girl. Then they ask to be slapped and punched across the face, and they enjoy it. In just those few moments, "Thirteen" encapsulates everything that we may think teenagers are about - they enjoy violence and laugh at it. Their attitude is anything goes, as long as they don't get caught, or if they get caught red-handed, they will deny it.
The leading troubled girl is Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a straight A-student who loves to write poetry. She lives with her mother, Melanie (Holly Hunter), and her brother. Melanie runs a beauty salon from her kitchen (!) but it is barely enough to pay for their house rent. Occasionally, Melanie's boyfriend (Jeremy Sisto) stays over if he is not at the halfway house. Home is not grand but it is not hell either. Then one day, Tracy is overwhelmed when she sees a few girls led by Evie (Nikki Reed) get ogled by guys and watches them all storm off like a locust. Tracy wants to be a part of that world, she wants to be liked and to be popular. Before you can say that we entered the high-school world of John Hughes, Tracy starts hanging out with Evie. They become best friends, they indulge in drugs, sex, robbing clothing stores, partying, etc. Eventually Evie moves in with Tracy after Evie convinces Melanie of a familial tragedy. What can a mother do but be sympathetic to a 13-year-old?
But it is Tracy who starts to come apart. Her school grades plummet and sometimes she doesn't bother showing up for class (the fact that she may have to repeat a grade surprises her). She becomes more unsatisfied with her home life particularly her father's absence and her mother's boyfriend, who is
trying to be helpful. Tracy stars to cut her arm with a razor blade, just enough to let go of the pain she feels. Meanwhile, Evie starts stealing from Tracy and her mother. The lies and deceit mount, as does the drug-taking.
"Thirteen" is tough and uncompromising to be sure, but something is askew in the depiction of Tracy's character. For one, I understand Tracy's need to cling to something, to be part of a clique. I also understand the co-dependency of Tracy to Evie and vice-versa. But for Tracy to be unhappy of her home life when she seems to love her mother feels untrue, especially to the point of mutilating her forearms (she used to cut her wrists). Call me a naive adult who has never suffered to such an extent as a teenager, but I hardly believed that Tracy's own ill-will and lack of self-image comes from an absent father. I imagine it would realistically (the screenplay was written by Nikki Reed based on actual experiences), but consider the girl we see before this wicked transformation takes place - she never seemed mad at anyone until she met Evie. It is like Evie drove Tracy to madness.
Most of "Thirteen" is shot with a hand-held digital camera, but the director Catherine Hardwicke should have told her cameraman that not every scene needs to be as wavy as a tsunami. Though I liked the icy blue-green look of the last half of the film, some stable camera shots could have been put in place. We do not need to be disoriented every second when the main character isn't always disoriented (and make no mistake, the film is told from Tracy's subjective point-of-view).
The performances are outstanding overall. Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed are completely credible as the co-dependent teenagers who look for anything wild to do as an experiment, including kissing each other. Most notable are the mothers in the film, including Holly Hunter who is mostly mortified at her daughter's behavior. Hunter does have a nude scene with her boyfriend that is likely to
cause more flinching than anything else in the film. The other mother, Brooke (Deborah Kara Unger) may or may not be Evie's real mother but she is not the best guardian for Evie - no wonder Evie leaves her. Both Hunter and Unger get credit for playing the most unglamorous female characters of their respective careers.
"Thirteen" has moments of raw honesty and paints a fairly bleak picture of teen life. The ending is a powerhouse delivering an emotional catharsis unlike any seen in any teen film in recent memory. I just wish Tracy had been a more rounded, full bodied character so we could understand the pain she feels. But if this is what it is like to be thirteen in the 21st century, then I suppose I should be counting my blessings.
