THIRTEEN Fox Searchlight Pictures While I was watching Catherine Hardwicke’s new film "Thirteen" I had a very strange reaction – apart from the familiarity of the events on the screen which seemed to be ripped from the lives of myself and my friends -- I felt really sorry for my mom (who would think?). I think it was because while the events that the thirteen year old protagonist goes through felt so true and so like the things that my friends and I went through at that age I was finally able to see how bewildering and frightening all of that would seem from the parents’ point of view. Unlike the majority of "teen" movies Hollywood keeps shoving down our throats, "Thirteen" feels authentic – which may be largely due to the fact that the screenplay was co-written by director Catherine Hardwicke with the 14 year old Nikki Reed, who also stars as Evie in the film. That unusual combination gives the story a level of honesty we don’ t often see any more. The movie tells the story of Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), a thirteen year old junior high school girl who lives in a large house that her divorced mother (Holly Hunter) can barely afford to keep up. Her father seems to have – in a well-meaning way — abdicated any responsibility for caring for his children apart from sending a check. The domestic environment is completed by her brother and the addition of her mother’s recovering cokehead on-again-off-again boyfriend (Jeremy Sisto) and some of her mom’s friends from AA, who wander in and out. When the film begins Tracy is in school and beginning to notice a group of girls who seem much more sexually charged and adult than she and her friends. The film’s action and Tracy’s attempt at self-transformation is triggered by one of many casual cruelties that teenagers inflict on each other so effortlessly: when another girl dissects Tracy’s outfit – snickering at her schoolgirl patterned socks – she explodes in a frenzy of self hatred and rage. Tracy immediately finds herself consumed with a level of anger and emptiness that no one – least of all herself – realized was there. With relentless junior high logic, she correctly intuits that the fastest way to change her life is to ally herself with the acknowledged sexiest and wildest girl in the school – Evie (played by Nikki Reed, who co-wrote the film with director Hartwicke). Tracy pursues Evie, who of course treats her like a child unworthy of her notice until Tracy proves herself to her by stealing the wallet of a woman sitting next to her at a bus stop. Tracy offers the stolen funds and credit cards up to Evie and her friends and they go on a wild shopping spree – and she finds herself Evie’s new best friend. Within a matter of days Tracy is a new person, testing the limits of her body, her ability to attract boys, and the limits to which she can push her mother. Tracy and Evie run wild – staying out late, shoplifting, doing drugs, drinking, piercing body parts, ignoring their classes – and no one knows what to do or how to get the girls back on track. Although the friendship between Evie and Tracey develops perhaps a bit too quickly, the film really does bring out the intensity of the girls’ relationship and the desperate needs that keep them together. Evie’s family situation is not really clear: she lives with a "guardian" who is more interested in her plastic surgeries than the child she is supposed to be caring for, and the whereabouts of her mother and father are never clear. The bond with her friend is almost primal and includes a lot of elements of sexuality that never cross the line into overt lesbianism – in one scene they practice kissing with each other, and later they engage in make-out sessions with different boys while watching and mimicking each other’s movements – in another they attempt to seduce a next-door neighbor together. When Evie, who is practically living in Tracy’s home and sleeping in the same bed, sneaks out for a late night tryst with a boy, excluding Tracy, Tracy is consumed with loneliness and rage and runs to the bathroom to cut herself. In all these cases the boys involved seem to be less important than the girls’ need to connect to each other, and when Evie disappears with Tracy’s "boyfriend" for part of a drug-fueled evening Tracy’s suspicion and jealousy seem to be more directed at her friend than her boyfriend. The girls are literally joined at the hip, and Tracy uses her friend as a provocation and a buffer for every situation. The performances in this movie are uniformly wonderful: both girls are intense and believable, and there are points at which – even though it is a movie – I found myself scared for them. Hunter and Sisto do well portraying the type of adults who wither in the face of a child’s contempt, and Tracy makes them easy targets – refusing any of their kindness and treating them with the derision they themselves secretly think they deserve. "Thirteen" doesn’t offer easy answers – and it is clear that much is left unresolved at the end of the film. A lot of people will read this movie as an indictment of single-parent homes and absentee parenting, which is a terrible mistake. All the parents who watch this and think, "This won’t happen to my daughter because I am not single/a recovering addict/fill in the blank" are kidding themselves; this movie is less about the individuals and more about the universality of the experiences it portrays. Just as Tracy doesn’t understand exactly what is driving her confusion and desperate anger, the movie doesn’t pretend that there are easy "solutions" that things can ever go back to how they were. "Thirteen" is a very accurate and thought-provoking movie about the point at which parents can no longer control their children and children have to learn – painfully – how to define themselves. Still, after watching this, it might be nice to hug your mom. ~ April Roberts (aroberts310@nyc.rr.com) www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/thirteen Photo Credit: Anne Marie Fox