Thirteen

Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Sisto, Brady Corbet, Vanessa Hudgens
Directed by: Catherine Hardwicke
Rating: R
Genre: Drama
2003

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Tracey (Evan Rachel Wood) is a good student who befriends rebellious Evie (Nikki Reed), spiraling out of control as her mother (Holly Hunter) tries desperately to help her.

Review:

Tim: Thirteen is a small, decently well acted drama about a young teen dealing with family problems and a bad influence in the form of a friend. We watch as a perfectly normal, good girl soon turns bad, much to the chagrin and horror of her mother.
The film would be amazing except that the story takes an "innocent" young girl and turns her completely bad. She does drugs, smokes, drinks, pierces her body, gets into fights, skips school, fails tests, steals, engages in sexual acts, disrespects her mother, cuts herself, and more. She engages in every single kind of wrong or risky behavior short of bestiality. It is ridiculous and a little too over-the-top. I was surprised to see the long list of "bad" behavior this girl engaged in. It felt unrealistic, as one bad act led to another, which led to another. It seemed a bit too much.

The film is pretty well acted, and this is its strongest aspect. Holly Hunter is good as the helpless mother, and I don't always like her, so she was definitely good here. Evan Rachel Wood is believable as the young girl, although she's not exactly fantastic. Nikki Reed is good, too, who also co-wrote the movie.

The film's conclusion is pretty weak. The betrayal part felt a little forced and a little slopped together, like the writers asked themselves how to end the film and just went with whatever came to them first. I think this movie could have been far more well thought out and more powerful.

Mostly, Thirteen suffers from being too predictable and with its insistence on showing all the evil behavior that can come from a bad influence. I wasn't very impressed with this movie. I thought this movie could have been great, but it is not.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 5



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