Thirteen

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Nikki ReedScreen Time: 60%Role: Evie Zamora Age: 14 years old |
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Evan Rachel WoodScreen Time: 80%Role: Tracy Louise Freeland Age: 15 years old |
Thirteen
Photos
Directed: Catherine Hardwicke
Country: USA
Language: English
Genre: Coming of Age, Drama
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328538
Summary
At the edge of adolescence, Tracy is a smart straight-A student--if not a little naive (it seems...she smokes and she cuts to alleviate the emotional pain she suffers from having a broken home and hating her mom's boyfriend, Brady.) When she befriends Evie, the most popular and beautiful girl in school, Evie leads Tracy down a path of sex, drugs and petty crime (like stealing money from purses and from stores). 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.
Movie Reviews
Thirteen Reasons NOT to See Thirteen, 21 June 2004Author: (theupdateghost@yahoo.com) from IMDb
I'll just get right to the point.
1. It leaves you wondering ALL DAY as to what the hell you're supposed
to think of it. Walking out of it, I said, "I didn't like it, and it
really wasn't that good of a movie." When I woke up in the morning, I
said "It was a good movie, but I didn't like it." Later, I said, "It
was okay, and I thought it was alright." And now, I'm thinking, "Man,
that movie SUCKED." It's 2/4, 2/5, and a C on the grading scale. Weird,
how it all works, especially with the given meanings of all those
ratings. I guess it averages out to be an "Okay minus."
2. THE OPENING SCENE is one of THE WORST opening scenes I have seen in
my entire life. This movie was far from one of the worst I've ever
seen, but the opening was definitely just bad. There's some wanna-be
heavy rock music which gets more and more annoying as it plays and
plays, and we have a still head shot of our protagonist (not really),
Tracy, staring at the camera, smiling (and its the most annoying smile
ever), looking to be enjoying herself in the most disturbing way
possible, and I don't mean sexually, I mean something BEYOND sexual,
I'm talking to the inner dimensions of... a word that is too disturbing
to be professed in the English language. Yes, that's how disturbing the
look on her face is. Anyway, this shot continues for thirty seconds
until she finally puts her hand on her face, with that disturbing smile
just chugging along. It all seems to be in slow motion. That's all I'll
say about that.
3. The SUPERB acting is WAY TOO GOOD for a movie that's not that great.
And this is something that truly annoys me, seeing beautiful acting in
a movie that I don't really recommend one seeing. Holly Hunter, who I
consider the REAL protagonist, plays the "protagonist's" mother, and
when the movie definitely shouldn't be effective, she pulls through and
makes it that way. If it wasn't for her, my rating for this movie
(which, as I said, is okay-minus), would drop down to a down right bad.
And Nikki Reed and Evan Rachel Wood, the real ANTAGONISTS, who play the
two evil teenage girls, are great actors for two young people their
age, those ages being younger than mine. I've never been quite so aware
of my acting skills, but I'm sure these girls would kick my a*se
anytime. One character, who plays the mom's boyfriend, is the most
indefinitely likable- I loved the character from beginning to end.
While our "protagonist" (or, once more, lack there of) hates him, the
film, and his acting, just totally drives us to like him, and he did an
excellent job.
4. The CHARACTERS are WAY TOO INTERESTING for a movie that's not all
too great. Evan Rachel Wood, as Tracy, has an excellent amount of depth
that allows us to understand her persona. While I don't really
understand Evie, her best friend, by Nikki Reed, I don't really know if
we're supposed, and nonetheless, she's probably the best stereotype of
a bad teenage girl I've ever seen. The mother has a history of
alcoholism and a tough family life, and its beautiful to watch her
triumph in the tougher areas of her life, and not take out her tough
childhood on her kids. And of course, there's that boyfriend guy,
again, and he just rocks.
5. The DIALOGUE is WAY TOO REALISTIC for a movie that's not... that
good. One thing I love to do when I watch a film is listen to the
dialogue and figure if its something someone in that situation would
really say. This movie, with the exception of one scene, hits it right
on the spot for the entire film. When characters say certain things, we
really believe they would really say that, and the movie does a good
job of not stretching into the ridiculous with its words, with the
exception of that one scene. Its amazing that a thirteen-year old could
participate in writing something this well.
6. Many of the SCENES are WAY TOO EFFECTIVELY DISTURBING for a movie,
that when you sum it all up, isn't really all that good. We have to
watch girls, in a strange high, beat the crap out of each other AND
ENJOY IT. We have to contemplate the fact that a thirteen-year old is
giving head to a guy to impress her friends, then convinces herself
into thinking she had a good time, when we're all pretty damn sure she
didn't. We have to watch young kids try to do seduce a guy six years
older than them. We have to watch a young girl cut herself, and we have
to see this slice by slice, and watch the blood ooze out of her arm,
and then bleed through her shirt when she puts it on. Yes, many of the
scenes are done so effectively that we want to turn our heads and puke.
But sadly, the film doesn't add up to much.
7. NIKKI REED IS A FOX. I can say this, of course, because I'm 16, and
she's 15- the first time I saw a picture of this girl, I was blown
away, and she does a great job of convincing us she's one of the
world's finest in the movie. Why is this a bad thing? Because her
attractiveness distracts you from the movie... if you're my age, that
is.
8. The SITUATIONS are FAR FROM REALISTIC. Despite the fact that the
dialogue works in the bizarre things that happen in this movie, the
fact that those bizarre things happen just take away from it all when
we realize them. Tracy is far less rational then we believe a girl of
her persona would be- because ONE girl comments on her socks (which
looked fine), she throws away all of her clothes and just all of a
sudden decides to be a bad girl. Now, if there were scenes displaying
that she had a history of wanting to be like this, then fine, I might
settle, but with what we have, it just doesn't work. And then, even if
that had happened, and it was realistic, the things that happen
afterwards, such as the character not stopping ONE TIME and saying,
"Hm, maybe I SHOULDN'T be doing this," just... doesn't work. At all.
Its as if all of her morals were just zapped out of her like a fart in
the wind. Its offensive to me that the filmmakers think we're supposed
to believe this (apparently Nikki Reed does, which really worries me
about the L.A. area where this take place in.)
9. Because ADULTS THAT I KNOW, after seeing this movie, THINK EVERY
DAMN KID IS GOING TO HELL, if they get enough people to see this movie,
there could be an all-out assault on my generation. No, I don't mean
war with guns and grenades and old people driving fast for once, I mean
constant unreasonable criticism and worry about kids my age, when most
of us really are good people with good intentions. This movie presents
it as otherwise- true, many teenagers smoke, smoke pot, drink, and have
all the sex they want, but that's not most of them (though most have
done one of the above once), and I don't know a single teenager as
cruel and ill-willed as those displayed in this film. In this movie,
they make it seem like common sense to be this way, for a teenager.
10. THE DIRECTION HANDS-DOWN SUCKS. Maybe those scenes are disturbing,
but they could have been so much better, and all scenes outside of
those scenes just aren't directed in any particular... fashion. Its
like there's no art to them than just to be boring. Thirteen is a movie
that should have been messed up in a way like we've never seen before,
combining techniques from Fight Club and Requiem for a Dream to deliver
its message (which I suppose is that thirteen-year olds go under an
amazing amount of peer pressure, which may be true in the area of the
world this movie takes place in), but instead, the movie seems to carry
more of an Office Space technique, just showing the lives of its
characters as they are, and not putting a spin on them. Thirteen should
have had that spin. It should have had that special twist that made you
remember it forever and forever. But no, this was not done, and thus, I
left the movie feeling as if it really could have been so much more.
11. YOU HAVE TO SEE HOLLY HUNTER NUDE. She's a pretty lady, I suppose,
but she's 50, or something, and while I do suppose nudity was needed in
this movie (not with the teenagers, I just mean while watching the
movie, I really felt as if it needed nudity, not for interest or
anything, but it was just necessary), Holly Hunter... nude? I wanted to
close my eyes.
12. THE TRAILERS are more INTERESTING than THE MOVIE. This movie, only
95 minutes long, takes a freaking eternity, and so much of one that I
was really starting to get bored by it at the end. Somehow, the
trailers manage to be much more interesting than this film. The Eye, a
Japanese film being released in America quite soon, looks absolutely
terrifying, and one guy said it was one of the best movies he's ever
seen. I hadn't yet seen a trailer for Lost in Translation, and seeing
as I was already very interested in seeing it, now I know that I MUST
see this movie, or... my film life might just be without a point. And
then we have the trailer for ELEPHANT, which looks the most interesting
out of the films to me, a very effective display, and a much more
realistic one, of high school life today. This movie looks absolutely
beautiful.
13. THE ENDING, while somewhat senseful, for a few seconds, makes you
say HUH? I guess, while some people might tend to interpret it
differently, most people can get an agreeable idea of what the final
scene means for our friends. Either way, there were a few times today
where I just thought back to it and wasn't really quite sure what to
think of it. While I was suppose one could say it was appropriate, I
would have been more content with a more cliché'd, more definite
ending.
So there you have it. Thirteen reasons not to see Thirteen. But you
probably won't listen to me.
Rating: C-