Thirteen

[Bob Chebat]

Available on DVD on Tuesday, January 27. For a disturbing look at the life of two teenage girls who are on a four month downward spiral, you'll definitely want to check this one out.

From imdb.com:

At the edge of adolescence, Tracy is a smart straight-A student--if not a little naive. When she befriends Evie, the most popular and beautiful girl in school, Evie leads Tracy down a path of sex, drugs and self-mutilation. As Tracy transforms herself and her identity, her world becomes a boiling, emotional cauldron fueled by new tensions between her and her mother--as well as, teachers and old friends.

As a parent with a teenage daughter, I can tell you this one sits with you for awhile. This is what happens when someone who is getting ignored at home decides they want some popularity elsewhere.

It is tastefully done, very well acted, and a must see. Evan Rachel Wood plays the main character Tracy, brilliantly.

 

[schutd]

Whew. Heavy night for films last night. Watched this and 21 Grams, back to back.

Thirteen is a very well written film, very well directed, and comes off as very true to life, and not some scare tactic based film. It felt real, the entire time.

Recommended to anyone. Makes me hope I have a boy!

 

[Bada0Bing]

Yeah, I’m glad I have boys too. Four more years until the first one hits this age. I’m glad that I’m firmly planted in his life. Now, the challenge it to stay there. Very interesting movie for parents.

 

[JerkFace]

my 10 year old daughter has been locked in her room ever since i watched this movie.

 

[Ryanwb]

Afer seeing this movie, I'm locking my son in his room in case he becomes a cross dresser named Candy

 

[boondockdrunk]

I did not like this movie at all, but I did like the acting.

I saw this when I was a teen and was shocked that so many people took it as the rule and not the exception. Not all kids are doing things like this! Then most people felt bad for the girl in the end. Why? She was the personification of many words that I (thankfully) cannot convey on this site. The main character comes off as blaming everything on the new friend of hers and not looking towards the real problem, herself.

Thirteen was a comedy for me. Really it was. Maybe I have a sick sense of humor but the person I watched it with said, "Damn, people need to start paying attention to what 13 year-olds are doing everywhere." All 13 year olds are like this? Sorry but the movie is over-dramatic.

While it is not as hysterical as 'Kids,' it comes very close.

Here is my review for the movie ‘Thirteen’

Hardwicke co-wrote the script to ‘Thirteen’ with Nikki Reed, the daughter of her ex-boyfriend. Supposedly based upon Reed’s real life events and managed to win praise at the Sundance Film Festival for its raw truth of today’s youth. However, it appears that the SFF is as gullible as ever “because nobody noticed how much Reed’s real-life traumas resemble the Drew Barrymore potboiler ‘Poison Ivy.’”

In addition, Reed stars as this movie’s bad girl, named Evie Zamora. When ‘sweet-as-pie’ heroine Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) enters junior high school, she befriends the fashionable but disturbed Evie.

Identifying Tracy’s mother (Holly Hunter) as a softhearted woman, Evie spins a tale of cruel and negligent parents, and she moves in. Evie wastes no time corrupting Tracy by taking her through tumultuous events of trickery, tattoos, shoplifting, sex and drugs…. Lots and lots of drugs.

I would compare this film to Larry Clark’s 1995 slop entitled “Kids,” which also painted teenage life as a relentlessly bleak world of crime and degradation. This film was also praised for its raw truth about today’s youth, ‘Kids’ was also hailed as an eye-opener to parents about what their children were doing.

Steadily it occurred on New Yorkers that most American teenagers weren’t shooting heroin, attending orgies and maiming each other with baseball bats. Just as quickly as it rose, “Kids” dropped into well-deserved obscurity. The same too will be said about ‘Thirteen’ in the coming years.