Thirteen

Rating:
Summary: From Tracy...
Review: Well, that may not be my name, but it is my experience. I cannot believe the number of reviews here that call her story "unrealistic." Rather, I can believe it, because people outside of it do not WANT to see it.
I started the 7th grade at 12 yrs old. By the time I turned 13 a few months later, I had lived much of "Thirteen"s storyline. I had a best friend (strikingly similar even in appearance to Evie in the film) with whom I started the sick downward spiral that is the film's focus. I was silently riveted by this movie every second, because every single element was perfectly real, just the sort of feeling I remember.
To those who would discount the film because of Tracy's amazingly quick bond with Evie, don't. I haven't seen a "right" explanation of why Tracy got in thick with Evie on this site yet. The truth is, it doesn't have to be because your home life is bad. It doesn't have to be because you want to be cool. For me, I started this road and there was no hesitation, I didn't do it to rebel or escape but because there was such a strange mix of opportunity, newness, and raw emotion that these things became possible and, in some sick way, inviting. And no, my mother was not neglectful, proof that Tracy's mother cannot be solely blamed for what happened.
The truth is, this film is real, as perfectly real as it gets, especially for me. My "Evie" friend went on down that road even after I had done my share of reforming, and made a new best friend, and, before they reached high school, they had both been found out and were seperated by their terrified parents. This is a real story.
And, to the reviewer who ranted about how horrible the girls were, let me say this -- it's true. They were horrible. I was selfish and cruel and did things I hated myself for for a long time afterwards. But it is only a time, not a lifetime... you are disgustingly wrong if you think that these girls could never become decent women. You are very, very wrong.
In any case, this is a wonderful film. Evan Rachel Wood is astonishingly raw and I love her for that. But, if you watch this film and aren't touched, it's not the film's fault.

Rating:
Summary: Intense And Eyeopening
Review: "Thirteen" is a highly intense drama worthy of watching. The hardhitting scenes in this wrongfully underrated movie keep everything realistic looking and keep audiences eyes wide open. Its daring theme earns the cast and crew trememdous respect for graphically exploring what few other moviemakers have. The research of such issues are present: drug use, theft, out-of-control behavior, and many more all from teenagers. The emotional aspect never fades for a second, keeping audiences interested the whole time. This brilliant plot is loosely based on actress Nikki Reed's, who plays Evie, life. Knowing this, the graphic nature becomes more necessary to inform audiences of teenage realities. The actors offer their own emotional standing to the movie. Evan Rachel Wood's Golden Globe nominated (Best Actress) performance proves that she's one of the few child actors with talent. Her despliction of an out-of-control thirteen-year-old, Tracy, places her in higher territory as an actress. Her intensity shines in every scene. Holly Hunter's Oscar nominated performance (Best Supporting Acress) is one of her best roles in years. She beautifully desplicts the stresses and turbulances as Tracy's mother struggling to keep her family together. All other actors also perform their roles wonderfully. "Thirteen" is a great movie for those looking for heartpounding drama. This will surely please many audiences.

Rating:
Summary: KItty The Punk's opinon
Review: Honestly, I was surprised.I thought this movie was going to just be another cliched, by the book bad-girl drags good-girl down into a torrent of drugs, sex and rock-n-roll(or in this case, hip hop) with "shocking" twists to make it seem edgy.In a majority of the professional reviews i've read on this film, the probably over-thirty reviewers have usually asserted that this film did,in fact,use shock over substance. But, as a girl barely eighteen, I have to make a rebuttal. I saw myself, and many of my seventh-grade friends reflected in the characters of Tracey and Evie. Wake up and smell the yummy coffee,my sweets,Thirteen-year-olds all across the country ARE doing drugs,commitig illegal acts and having sex and they aren't naive about any of it. So know that the language,mannerisms and actions of Thirteen's characters aren't plastic and pay attention to the plot.It's important. We have Tracey,blond and sweet(of course) and somewhat innocent but obviously more socialy advanced and wild than her tame book-worm friends. She befriends Evie,the wiser,expiranced one by stealing a woman's cash-packed wallet after she is mocked for not shoplifting with Evie and her snobby friend. Evie soon begins spending copious amounts of time at Tracey's house, and as Tracey and Evie grow closer, Tracey grower farther from her mother who Tracey can't stand to see back with her junkie boyfriend. As the plot slowly unfolds,we see that Evie is in love with Tracey in the rare and very subtle tender parts of the film and when Evie convinces Tracey to kiss her "for practise" it is obviously a seduction. Athough all of it is only implied,Tracey seems to unconsciously fall in love with Evie also,further estranging herself from her family and old friends and attaching herself closer and closer to Evie. Evie also confesses to Tracey's mother the sexual and physical abuse she suffered through when she was younger and becomes close to her in a mother-daughter way but simultaniously also appears to have some sexual feelings towards the older woman. Evie wants to openly love and be in a relationship with Tracey and have Tracey's mother accept this so they could all live together as a rather unusual, but happy psedu-family, something Evie never had. But Evie never falls out of her old behavior and her randomly sadistic nature rips at Tracey and her self-mutilation problem grows. Evie becomes worse and worse near the end of the film,purposely hurting Tracey for no reason. At the climax of the film, when Evie is in trouble with her flighty aunt, she betrays Tracey by ratting her out- even exposing Tracey's ultimate secret, self-multilation, which she had discovered when she cuddled and kissed the sleeping Tracey much earlier in the film. Even though Evie's actions are under-handed and nasty instead of villifying her it only makes her more pitiable. All of her emotional damage, carefully revealed in the film, have made her so jaded that she cannot bring herself to trust anyone-despite Tracey's devotion to her and their shared affection for each other, she just cannot bring herself to be put in a vulnerable position.

Rating:
Summary: You need to see this movie
Review: This is a movie that everyone needs to see. It's one of those movies that you don't see everyday. This movie ranges from the happiest of emotions to the saddest, darkest ones in a matter of minutes. It presents life as a teen in a realstic way, a way very few movies have captured. Hopefully from this movie parents will learn a little bit about the pressures of being a teen today and what is going on when they can't be with their children. People can not say that this stuff never happens and that it's just hollywood making everything more dramatic because it's based on a person's life. Keep that in mind while you watch the movie, before it's over you'll be crying.

Rating:
Summary: Oh, the Angst. The Exaggerated Angst.
Review: First glance of the glowing reviews given to this particular piece would have you believe it is a reliable account of the dangers of "growing up", indeed the tag line gives a good preview of what is to come by mentioning how growing up is a dangerous thing to do, but it seems more dangerous to actually sit through this movie and expect the performances to come across as realistic and "everyday" life of normal teenagers.

The movie begins with the predictable shock attempt, featuring the movie's two leading ladies Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed (who co-wrote the script based on her own life) getting high off aerosol fumes and smacking each other senseless because they couldn't feel their faces. Once again, congratulations to the Hollywood moguls who feel drug abuse is the only complexity in a teenage life. And then, the focus of the movie shifts from the scene to "four months earlier" in which a fast paced set of events, with little in-depth explaination, begin to unravel. Tracy (Evan) is the traditional good girl from a broken home who is unable to deal with the fact her father was replaced by a cocaine addicted "boyfriend" her mother seems to fool around with on a nearly endless basis, and although the main reviews seem not to focus on this point, it is her hatred of that particular man that begins the events in the movie. Almost every time you catch her interactions with her down-on-her-luck mother's boyfriend, you'll catch a new change in the character of Tracy, always for the worse.

Suffice to say, the movie was predictable. Attempts at shock value with drugs, cutting, interracial sex and a superb show of two under eighteen year olds seemingly having sex with anything that walked really showed this movie was anything but a typical teenage day in the park. Far from describing real teenagers, the movie focused on a minority suffering from some of the same situations as Tracy and her low income broken home. So much was left without explaination, Noelle for example. Noelle simply vanished after being her friend only to show up towards the end for a cameo in the science project scene? Why didn't she attempt to help her friend out of the mess she was seeing her become? And of course, the end of the movie simply became one gigantic metaphor for the roller coaster world Tracy had ended up in. Dramatic, definately. Good acting? I'd say these two have a huge Hollywood future. I'd simply suggest Nikki Reed stick to the big screen as an actress and away from the script. Predictability in these movies tends to take away from the dramatic ending, similiar to Requiem For A Dream, that shows the realization of how destroyed a formerly innocent girl had become inside and out. The final scream in the merry-go-round was the "end", and thankfully so as there was very little originality and a lot of stereotypical characterization (i.e: evil black teenage thugs, broken down poverty stricken mother in Holly Hunter who seems to just let her daughter suffer until the very end, drug addicted boyfriend/stepfather) that deprived the movie of truly becoming a classic. It'll open your eyes, but but by the time the scene comes to an anti-climatic close 100 minutes later, you'll wish you kept them shut.

Rating:
Summary: A bit overdone ... well, more than a bit
Review: Maybe my expectations for this movie were too high, but they weren't nearly met.

I teach middle school, so I know a fair bit about the age range represented by the main characters. Here are the main areas in which I feel the movie fell short.

First of all, a lot of these "kids" looked WAY older than 13!

Second, there was simply too much melodrama. It was all crime and booze and drugs and sexuality and screaming and cursing. (Would any mother really let her kid speak to her that way with virtually no consequences?) Even for a film about kids on the edge, this was an unrelenting overload.

Third, there were many gaps in the story. We see the glamorous girl (Evie) ignoring/belittling the plain one (Tracy), then we soon see her complimenting Tracy's shirt and talking to her as if they're familiar. We see Evie hanging out at Tracy's, then suddenly she's living there. We see Tracy's mom (Melanie) finding out that Evie has been lying to her, then later believing more of the same from Evie. And on and on. (Maybe I missed a thing or two on my only viewing, but I couldn't have missed _everything_.)

I liked Evan Rachel Wood's work on "Once and Again," and I think she did a reasonably good job with the material. Holly Hunter was also good, as was the guy who played her boyfriend. But after the praise I'd heard for this movie, I was puzzled and disappointed.

Rating:
Summary: Unnerving.
Review: Just when I thought that maybe the Information Age had finally caught up to the youth of America I see a movie like this and I am reminded that regardless of Era, kids will always have the same difficulties growing up. This is an excellent independent film with glowing performances from the entire cast. But there are two, in particular, that drive this unnerving film home. Evan Rachel Wood, in an auspicious performance, gives a powerful turn as a 13-year-old suddenly overwhelmed with puberty and peer pressure. Her acting alone is reason enough to see this, but then Holly Hunter matches her scene for scene with a subtle, extraordinary performance. On a personal note, this film provoked memories of alcohol abuse in my own family, making it all the more striking. I can't say that I would recommend buying this. I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to watch this disheartening tale of disintegrating youth more than once. However, the acting is really good and the documentary style in which this film was shot made me feel more like a voyeur than an audience member, leaving me drained with the experience. The final scene in which Ms. Wood is holding onto the outside of a playground merry-go-round and then suddenly screams is a perfect metaphor for the beginning of adolesence: confusing and frightening, exhilerating and dizzying. This is an unnerving film with good acting and a thought-provoking tale.

Rating:
Summary: Same Movie , Different Decade
Review: Everyone in this film is painfully hip and beautiful. Even the parents. Why is that? Why don't they make a drug film involving unnattractive people? Everyone in this film looks like they stepped out of a rock video. This is tried to be explained by making the mother in the film a beautician.
This film has been done time after time. In black and white it was "The Days Of Wine and Roses" and "Heroin Fiends". In the eighties it was "Less Than Zero". The plot never changes. The only changes are the clothes, hair and soundtrack.
I am sorry there is nothing new in this film, nothing to shock, nothing to suprise. When the daughter breaks down in the kitchen towards the end of the film, she is suppose to be hysterically crying, look close there are no tears!
Holly Hunter stars as the mother and as usual gives the only worthy performance, typical of the films she appears in.

Rating:
Summary: SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT...SORT OF
Review: Tracy is a sweet yet troubled teen who meets the alluring bad girl Evie and falls into a life of drugs sex and crime but this is not some dreadful after school special version of teen issues with cute and tidy resolutions. Thirteen is a bold, gut-wrenching film about the crumbling American family and the current generation of overexposure, MTV, reality shows, and disillusionment. Tracy is astonishingly portrayed by Evan Rachel Wood who gives such an amazing performance it should take child-acting to new heights. Evie is portrayed by Nikki Reed (who also co-penned the script) is a vibrant screen newcomer. The Oscar nominated Holly Hunter ,as Mel, is brilliant as a bohemian, alcoholic single mom who watches her daughter Tracy descend into self-destruction right before her eyes. The director Catherine Hardwicke directs the film with relentless, edgy appeal giving the film it's power and drive.

Although most critics give the film massive acclaim, some have shuddered at the shocking horror of the explicit nature of the teen lifestyles of Thirteen and many perhaps deny the possible accuracy of the film. "Are kids really that bad?" No, not all kids are drug-users dealers hypersexed or criminals but one must admit with a generation raised on MTV and Hollywood scandal , where many kids have to go to school in fear if their classmates may kill them, a generation where many believe oral sex isn't as intimate as kissing, or being a "pimp" or a "thug" is the true aspiration of life...the mood of the film is an unflinching cinematic opus to a generation sadly spiralling out of control.

Rating:
Summary: A Mirror Cracked: The Battlefield of Adolescence
Review: THIRTEEN is a wrenching look at what is happening, at least in some arenas, to adolescents in our stressed society today. This is a pungently real, throbbing two hours of the descent of a 'normal' but vulnerable thirteen year old 7th grader (Evan Rachel Wood as Tracy), the daughter of a divorced, recovering alcoholic mother (Holly Hunter) who loves her children and supports them by working as a hairdresser in their home, who succumbs to the need of peer acceptance by aligning with the most 'with it' girl in her class (Nikki Reed's Evie), and moves from normalcy into drugs, crime, self abuse, and rage against the adult world. There is no comic relief or any relief at all in this ring of Dante's Inferno and that is as it should be, Co-writers Nikki Reed (yes, the beautiful young accomplice in the film) and Catherine Hardwicke have written a script that makes us feel we are neighbors unwillingly privy to the madness of folks next door. The language is raw, the drug scenes are realistic, and the sex scenes are gratefully fogged over by the fine cinematographer using the blur effect to tell much more than playing actual witness could show. This is a very fine, though very tough to watch, film about a real problem that surrounds us. There is no pat ending, only a hint that something positive has resulted from this assault on our senses. Much of this is due to the fine direction by Catherine Hardwicke, but the power comes from extraordinary performances Evan Rachel Wood (why did the Academy single out Keisha Castle-Hughes and ignore Wood if they were looking for a young actress' performance?), Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Sisto, Deborah Unger (becoming one of the finer character actors around), and all the cast. This is a
a film that deserves everyone's attention: how else can we develop awareness of why drugs and peer pressure are such demons in placing our youth on such a terrifyingly intrepid battleground? Kudos to those who had the courage to make this film and bring a mirror up close for us to see the cracks.