CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Thirteen

Director

Catherine Hardwicke

Year

2003

Rating

Reviewed by

José Ruiloba a.k.a. Morris

Review date

Wednesday, January 07, 2004

It is Groucho, not me, who is a big fan of Evan Rachel Wood. Somehow I had never been interested in her, seeing her as one more of many blonde young actresses trying to make their way in the difficult world that is Hollywood nowadays. But then came Thirteen and the raves and the accolades. I had to see it for myself…

Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is the daughter every mother would like to have. She causes no trouble and is doing great at school. But that changes once Tracy meets popular Evie (Nikky Reed). Soon she gets into a world of drugs, sex and rebellion that her mother Melanie (Holly Hunter) is unable to stop.

Why is Thirteen so great? The answer is easy: It’s real. Director Catherine Hardwicke wrote the movie with Reed based on their personal story. Thus the movie feels so honest and so in-your-face. Even the way Hardwicke chose to shoot it (with a hand-held camera and gritty-looking photography) feels as if we’re there in the middle of the conflict.

The movie also tells a story we can all relate to. Now, I’m not saying we were all into drugs and rampage sex, but we can all relate in the way we know adolescence is not pretty. Those years are so difficult, so confusing, trying to find our place in the world, only caring for what other people think of us. Tracy is the example of that gone to the extreme, but it’s there, and it’s palpable.

There’s also an interesting aspect to this movie in how it poises the question of how much effect can our parents (or the lack of them) have on growing-up years. Melanie loves her daughter and is proud of her, but her way of life (she’s divorced, a recovering alcoholic and has a drug-addict boyfriend) definitely affects her. Melanie is not entirely to blame, but one wonders if she could’ve played a different role while Tracy fell more and more toward the abyss.

The performances in this movie are incredible. We have no hard time believing Tracy’s transformation because of Wood’s extraordinary job. She’s a really brave actress and goes through a lot in the movie, yet she always continues to be human instead of a caricature. Holly Hunter, as her mother, is heart-breaking. Watch her face expressions, her inner rage, her desperation. Amazing work. And last but not least I also want to mention Reed because she’s also impressive in her own tour-de-force role.

So hard…

“I didn’t know that it went that far!”

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Other reviews of Thirteen (2003): Groucho

Review

Thirteen

Director

Catherine Hardwicke

Year

2003

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Wednesday, February 11, 2004

Tracy Freeland (Evan Rachel Wood) is a thirteen-year-old straight-A student, who’s also pretty and well-behaved in every way. Her mother, Molly (Holly Hunter), works hard to take care of Tracy and her brother, Mason (Brady Corbet), and also finds the time to be with her boyfriend Brady (Jeremy Sisto). The fact that her parents are separated, and that her mother spends so much time with Brady, hurts Tracy deeply, but she doesn’t show it. At the same time, in her search for acceptance, Tracy approaches High School’s most popular girl, Evie Zamora (Nikki Reed). Evie’s friendship is something a teenager would definitely not snub, so Tracy is willing to do anything (steal, even) in order to be accepted by that popular bad girl. After she’s proved she’s got what it takes, Tracy becomes best friends with Evie, to the point where they become nearly co-dependent. And though Evie behaves like an angel in front of any adult (namely Molly), and Tracy is more than careless in showing her sudden rebellion, who’s the bad influence is clear to us. But is Evie really a bad influence, or only some kind of door-opener for Tracy, who’s taking the chance to show her repressed anger? Her dysfunctional family had to explode sooner or later, anyway. Molly finds herself in absolute anguish when she proves unable to control or even understand Tracy, and no one else seems able to help. Evie’s influence spreads like an unstoppable virus, as Tracy gets into sex, drugs and crime, and eventually something’s gotta give. But, from the usual point of view of a teenager, Tracy’s situation is clearly dead-end.

This is a brave, realistic, and often unbearable portrait of the troubling teenage years. I remember when I was thirteen, how it all seemed bleak for me when I didn’t find acceptance in a new school. I believe I am still marked by the awful feeling that I had back then, because of the great importance with which I regarded all that when I was so young. By bringing my problems home, I transmitted the anguish to my parents, who had no idea how they could help me, or even understand me, or even control me whenever I was into rebelling. Even though my own case was nothing as hazardous as what’s presented to us in Thirteen, I remember feeling exactly the same way as this movie made me feel: Filmed with a handheld digital camera, with an often shabby photography, and filled with people at their worst (as to their aspect, and nervous state), the movie transmitted me just exactly what a teenage feels like whenever there are problems beyond his or her control. That’s probably also because director Hardwicke worked the script with Nikki Reed herself, based on the latter’s own experiences. This makes the movie stand out from most other teen movies, even those that deal with this kind of problems, even those that are written by the best writers, most of who, unfortunately for the movies they write, are not teenagers.

The camerawork however, while working its way into one’s mind, also distracts and confuses at times, and can even make someone dizzy. It would’ve been all right for me with a little less emphasis in that artifice. Also, on the negative side, I found the story to be a bit redundant; while this is probably done to achieve the feeling a teenager has when life goes on and problems stay, as a movie it gets a bit tiresome.

As performances go, you can’t ask for much more: Evan Rachel Wood, after a notable TV career, and a couple of poor big screen appearances, is unforgettable here as the girl whose problems emerge at light speed all of a sudden. She even reminded me of Jean-Pierre Léaud in The Four Hundred Blows (1959), which is saying a lot, in the way that Tracy, just like Antoine Doinel, manifests her inner troubles by getting in trouble herself in whichever way, instead of going to the core; easier said than done, to be sure. Nikki Reed is right-on-target as the bad girl / bad influence, who’s not free of inner trouble herself. In fact, her character is just as complex as Tracy’s, and Reed’s performance is definitely heartfelt and touching. True to word-of-mouth, Holly Hunter astounds as the white trash mother; no makeup and cruel photography make her look so real, you can nearly touch her, thanks also to her incredible performance. You can feel her frustration in every breath she takes; amazing. The rest of the cast does a great job as well, including Deborah Unger, as Evie’s caretaker, and D.W. Moffett as Tracy’s absent father.

Dark but colorful, entertaining but devastating, sad but real, this is a movie every parent should see. It just might knock at your very door.

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Other reviews of Thirteen (2003): Morris