it's happening so fast...
OTHER TITLES: TREZE: INOCENCIA PERDITA (Portugues for THIRTEEN: LOST INNOCENCE (Portugal); A LOS TRECE (Spanish for THIRTEEN), THIRTEEN13 (Alternate title Spain); THIRTEEN: THE TIME WHEN LOVE IS MOST NEEDED (Japanese title); AOS TREZE (REACHING THIRTEEN (Brasil); 13THIRTEEN REBELLIOUS INTENTIONS OF YOUTH TODAY (title in Korea)
R for violence, sexuality, language, drug use, nudity and self-mutilation.
It's hard to explain why, without going into a great schpeel about my hatred of womanizing gangsta rap and drrty grrl pop, I found this film painful to watch. I might just go into that long schpeel before this is over. I know the music had a lot to do with why I can't say I initially enjoyed the film, but it wasn't just the music.
THIRTEEN is about Tracy, a girl who is beginning a new year of middle school. She seems very stable, cheerful and reasonably content with life in general. Her parents are divorced, yes. Her mother isn't rich, no. But still, Tracy seems happy. She SEEMS happy.
Truth be told, Tracy has hit that vulnerable age where fashion and popularity are suddenly the most important things on earth. You wish you could just jump into the film and tell her, "Oh, poor kid. Don't fixate on this miserable time. It will be over before you know it and you'll look back and either laugh or puke with disgust." But you can't do that, because even if jumping into a movie was possible, kids can't help but to fixate on their own inner demons: their insecurities, their need to belong, their need of attention. Tracy and her friend Noelle are baby faced innocents who still wear clothing that covers their intimate anatomy. Unfortunately, Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera are currently the two most influencial females in the world of thirteen year old girls, so everyone who wants to be "popular" "loved" "important" "respected" has to dress the way Evie dresses, which of course, is like those pop divas in their videos.
Evie, like Tracy, is barely thirteen, but looks like a 21 year old street walker from Hollywood. She wears heavy makeup, does her hair really glamorously, wears mature clothing, and has piercings in her tongue and navel. All the girls emulate Evie, all the boys fantasize about her with their hormones screaming. There's no adolescence. There is childhood and then suddenly there is adulthood, or what tries to be. As soon as Tracy catches Evie's eye with new low rider jeans and Sketchers, Tracy's own childhood is over too. Her friend Noelle is left behind, dismissed as too babyish with her more innocent way of dressing and wearing her hair. Tracy is part of Evie's in-crowd, and is soon participating in every bad/illegal activity she can possibly participate in: shoplifting, smoking, drinking, drugs, sex, staying out all night, and defying her well meaning but obviously flawed mom, Melanie (Holly Hunter). As Tracy descends quickly into Evie's realm of bad girlhood, Melanie's slight worries change into genuine fear.
And as much as I can't stand Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and would love to blame them for Tracy's downfall, I can't, because I saw a lot of Tracy's problems stemming from the bad parenting she has gotten. Melanie is sweet and well-meaning, and loves Tracy genuinely, but she has done some wrong things that probably started Tracy out on her problematic journey. Tracy was cutting herself for a while before Evie ever even came into the picture. Melanie makes her living by having a hair salon in the home, and the home has more people trotting in and out than Grand Central Station. Also, Melanie has a younger boyfriend named Brady (Jeremy Sisto), a recovering crack-cocaine addict who has been in and out of rehab. Tracy clearly does not like Brady and the reason is not made clear. I'm not inferring that Brady molested Tracy, for he seems very kind and caring to Tracy and her brother and their mom, in spite of his self-distructive past. I'm guessing rather that Brady's track record for falling off the wagon has left Tracy permanently disgusted with him. She feels Brady can do Melanie no good and will only keep the household in relapse turmoil. Melanie doesn't respect Tracy's feelings very much, and invites Brady to live with her. That to me was very disrespectful and I didn't wonder why Tracy had a lot of bottled up rage toward her mom. Frankly, Tracy's attitude toward Brady is so awful sometimes that you want to wring her neck, but again...
Tracy's biological dad is a jerk who acts all hassled and put out whenever Melanie asks him to take care of the kids or have the kids over at his place. He's too busy laying guilt routines onto Melanie and Tracy to be a father. In all honesty, Brady's a better role model. AND, I have to mention, Tracy's brother smokes weed and Melanie pretty much lets that go. Why the double standard??? Why is the son allowed to act out and do stuff that's illegal but when the daughter acts out Mom gets all hovery and worrysome??? That stuff always kind of rubs me the wrong way. I'm not saying Tracy wasn't heading in a dangerous direction. What I am saying is that Melanie was a very permissive mom who didn't want to face that maybe her two kids had some serious issues.
Evie's guardian is Brooke (Debra Unger), a bartender/model who is either gone all the time or just plain not there. It's clear Evie's been neglected by adults in her life, maybe even abused, otherwise why would she be so hell-bent on a life of decadence??? But still, I found it hard to empathize with her because her character was really superficial when compared to Tracy's. Tracy's is the pain we see and feel. Evie just seems to be a party girl who may or may not have had a few unpleasant things happen to her. Could be she's just a little brat who needed to have her ass paddled back before she started wearing low-riders. She squeezes off a few crocodile tears here and there, but a moment later she is swaggering around like the diva-bitch she wants everyone to think she is. She is such a manipulative, two-faced character that you don't know when she is to be believed. Either that or I could say that Evie was in such deep pain that her diva-bitch behavior was a facade and she was hoping Melanie would "rescue" her by taking her in. Evie was hard to read, and that might have been the whole point.
The film is really a banquet for lovers of cinema. Any film buff can appreciate the gritty realism, the refusal to santitize or censor or sugarcoat things, the moody color palette which changes from cheerful natural colors to bleak blues and nauseating greens. The docu-style camera work is great. The acting is naturalistic and beautiful, and I include Reed's portrayal of Evie when I say this. The music is true to the period and the age of the listeners.
With all due praise given, I admit I will not be adding "thirteen" to my film collection. It IS a good film. But the story just isn't of any use to me. I'm not a parent, and don't plan to be. I don't like rap music, so I'd have to fast foreward all the scenes with rap in them. And my youth is overwith. I had my own adolescent hell to live through and I made it out alive. True, when I was that age, they didn't have low rider jeans or pierced tongues, they had torn up punk rock clothing and purposely assymetrical hairdos. But they DID have premature sex, drugs, and a desire to tease and torment every straighlaced kid until they joined in or retreated into their own wallflower cave. I was a wallflower who didn't fit in with any of the "cool" kids. I hated puberty and all that pressure. I'm happy in my thirtysomething adulthood. Why go back and revisit a time that sucked ass???!!! This powerful, bleak, and honestly depressing at times film is really a must for anyone who has children, or wants to.
Okay, now I'm done...and oh yeah, update...I bought the film at Blockbuster!!! So much for my big mouth, eh???!!!
The Cast:
Holly Hunter as MELANIE FREELAND
Evan Rachel Wood as TRACY FREELAND
Nikki Reed as EVIE ZAMORA
Jeremy Sisto as BRADY
Brady Corbett as MASON FREELAND
D.W. Moffat as DAD
Debra Kara Unger as BROOKE
Jenicka Carey as ASTRID
Charles Duckworth as JAVI
and Hampton as HIMSELF
Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Written by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed
"Chickens are cool..."
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thirteen