Thirteen

Thirteen
by Catherine Hardwicke

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Movie Reviews of Thirteen

Movie Review: Hard to forget its only a film
Summary: 5 Stars

My mum and me actually sat and watched this together - she didn't need much persuasion, and she really enjoyed it. If you're a teenage girl, watching this with your mum, then it's a real eye-opener. When you're thirteen, you think you can do anything and be anybody. When you're watching this, you'll find yourself identifying with the characters, thinking "what if . . ." Thinking if you'd found different friends in high school, it might have changed the person you are now. Or if you'd changed your friends in high school, or all that kind of thing. It makes you think a lot, especially when you're a person who has been nearly four years out of high school.

Of course, this is based in a US high school, around a US lifestyle, but the characters are no different than the characters you'd find in any school, anywhere in the world. There's a few American-isms in this, which changes things, but then you'd find Trace (Evan Rachel Wood) or Evie (Nikki Reed) in any high school.

It's hard to believe when you look at Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed (who superbly co-wrote the story) that they're supposed to be playing thirteen-year-olds. They look lots older, and as Nikki says in the `making of' feature, there are lots of thirteen-year-olds, that look like they're eighteen, so they can do more things, that they're not legally supposed to be doing. I know many girls from high school, that are now going about pushing prams, which is a scary thought. But to watch this film, and see drugs, drinking, having underage sex, girls teaching each other to kiss, shoplifting, self-harming . . . the list goes on. And all in the short space of four months. The self-harming is definitely not for the faint-hearted. It's not too bad to start with, when Trace just uses the point of scissors. But when she can't find them, she uses a razor blade, and I could not watch that scene.

Holly Hunter is fantastic as Trace's mum, who can't stop her daughter going off the rails. She's 46, and it must have taken a lot of guts to go almost full frontal in this film for her. She's managed to keep herself in great shape for a 46-year-old, but I couldn't do that!

Some of the camera work is absolutely amazing, and some of the scenes are very well lit, especially when it's a very poignant or shocking scene, and sometimes they appear to be almost black and white.

When children go off the rails, the press and anyone around them will instantly blame the parents. Oh, they came from a bad background, all that kind of thing. What people don't understand is that people can come from a good background, and still go off the rails. But in this movie, Holly Hunter's character of Melanie is portrayed as the bad one, and the one that has made Trace rebel. Trace's dad isn't really on the scene (he appears once during the film, and doesn't really give a damn about his daughter, or his ex-wife is gradually getting to the end of her tether), and her mum is constantly seen smoking, or in bed with a younger man. And Evie eventually ends up staying over so much, that she practically becomes part of the family. It did get a bit confusing, cos Evie could have been calling Mel by her name or "Mum" - both words sound too similar, and Evie could have been calling Mel "Mum".

What I was expecting to see and didn't, was one of the characters getting pregnant. This would have topped this film off, although it probably would have ended differently, if that had happened. This could have easily happened; judging by the fact the amount of young mums going around with babies is getting scarily high. The amount of teenage pregnancies in the UK is higher than anywhere else in the world, although I can't really apply that to this movie, as it's American!

This film is like a whirlwind, and will leave you breathless at the end. It's definitely re-watchable, despite being too realistic. Every teenager should see this film, with their mums or alone. Maybe it will stop other teenagers ending up on the streets or pregnant and alone, cos the father can't be bothered to stay around. Although I doubt it. This is just skimming the top of what really goes on in teenagers' lives. What would be really scary is if you find yourself identifying with the lead characters. That's a major wake-up call.

Summary of Thirteen