Lock up your sons! (Thirteen (DVD))

Member Name: LittleEwok

Product:	Thirteen (DVD)
Date:	26/02/05 (306 review reads)
Rating:

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Truly a film to terrify every parent, Thirteen is about, as you might imagine, a pair of thirteen year old girls, best friends. But unlike most movies about thirteen year olds, these arent cute, well-behaved cheerleading wannabes, they're drinking, drug-taking, smoking, swearing, manipulative little monsters.

Out anti-heroine is Tracy, a cutesy thirteen year old whose just entered middle school. She loves her mum (Holly Hunter), babyish clothing and getting her homework in on time. Until she notices Evie. Everything she isn't, Evie is cool, sexy and a real uber-bitch. Tracy becomes obsessed with the idea of being Evie's best friend. One costume change, a couple of piercings and a stolen purse later, Tracy and Evie become best mates- but if you are expecting a "She's All That" style teen makeover movie, think again. Evie effectively moves in to Tracy's house and watches (and aids) Tracy as her relationship with her mother and brother falls apart. The gruesome twosome snort coke, attempt to have threesomes with much older lifeguards and sleep with each others boyfriends. Tracy's life slowly starts turning into utter hell as she finds herself taking too many drugs, getting kept back in school, cutting herself and having the worlds worst relationship with a parent, ever.

I was a bit wary about watching Thirteen...I hate teen movies, and from the beginning the movie is a bit MTV-ish. Cool tunes, cooler clothes and two sexy, skinny little girls running wearing not-too-much didnt really sound my sort of movie. However, although a tad embarassing in part, Thirteen packs quite a punch. It isn't all about the girls having fun, its about betrayal between a pair of friends, manipulation, back stabbing and a total break down from the main character Tracy, and her mum.

One of the interesting points of the film is that from the beginning, its clear Tracy wants to escape. Her relationship with her mother is good but they are broke and her mums cokehead ex boyfriend shows up...naturally Tracy hates him. However, she finds herself drawn deeper and deeper into the hell she is trying to escape when she becomes friends with Evie, her fairweather friend.

The film portrays the ecstasy and misery of the teenage life very accurately. Despite the girls doing things women twice their age would think twice about, we are made never to forget about the age of our precocious girlies. We see them explode with excitement when Tracy's crush calls her up, and we see Tracy's misery as she cuts into her arm with a razor blade and tries to convince herself that she hates her mother. The film was co-written by one of the stars, Nikki Reed, who was only fifteen at the time (apparently based on her own experiences), and it really shows in the way the film is done. Most films about teens see them from an adult viewpoint and get them totally wrong, this is spot on.

No easy options or answers are given in the film. Although it does give an insight to the girls' problems- abuse, neglect, sexualisation of young girls and wholly imperfect role models, it doesnt seek to give an explanation, or a happy ending for that matter. The characters in the film are three dimensional, something which is truly lacking in a lot of todays cinema. The mother figures are imperfect antitheses to the cookie-baking, bun-wearing, cuddly-bosomed "moms" so popular in cinema, and the teens are portrayed just as they are...you are shocked at their bitchiness and manipulation but yet you can't hate them because they are just so...human. All of the performances are impressive, Evan Rachel Wood as Tracy is explosive to Nikki Reeds sultry, manipulative but utterly loveable Evie. The standout performances are Holly Hunter as Tracys despairing mother, and Jeremy Sisto as her recovering drug-addict boyfriend.

Another great thing about this movie is it portrays being "cool" as what it actually often is...being out of control, ruthless and very, very nasty. Its unbelievable to watch Tracy copy Evie's every move as she searches for that elusive quality...cool.

One of the most affecting scenes in the movie is when Tracy and Evie escape from her mums clutches and go on the rampage in the city...while Tracy is buying soda, Evie disappears into a changing room with Tracys paramour. During the search for her, Tracy drinks from a bottle what I assume was GHB, which turns her into equal parts raving lunatic and total space cadet. The ending scenes are also very gritty, however i wont give away the entire plot!

A strong, graphic and realistic warning about what teenage girls have to deal with in this day and age, it dispells all notions of innocence and purity, and shows the consequences of growing up to fast along with the self-hatred that seems a prescription for teenage life. Despite being a little over-produced (this production clearly had a lot of money behind it), or perhaps BECAUSE of it, the movie has several heavy messages, and a strong sense of being grounded in reality. Mothers, you may well never let your kid out of the house again after seeing this!

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