Thirteen (2003)

A thirteen-year-old girl's relationship with her mother is put to the test as she discovers drugs, sex, and petty crime in the company of her cool but troubled best friend.

Director:

Catherine Hardwicke

Writers:

Catherine Hardwicke, Nikki Reed

Stars:

Evan Rachel Wood, Holly Hunter, Nikki Reed

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 14 wins & 48 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Nikki Reed	...	Evie Zamora
Evan Rachel Wood	...	Tracy Freeland
Vanessa Hudgens	...	Noel (as Vanessa Anne Hudgens)
Holly Hunter	...	Melanie Freeland
Brady Corbet	...	Mason Freeland
Ulysses Estrada	...	Rafa
Sarah Blakley-Cartwright	...	Medina (as Sarah Blakely-Cartwright)
Jenicka Carey	...	Astrid
Sarah Clarke	...	Birdie
Jasmine Di Angelo	...	Kayla
Tessa Ludwick	...	Yumi
Kip Pardue	...	Luke
Cece Tsou	...	Businesswoman
Jeremy Sisto	...	Brady
Jamison Yang	...	Science Teacher

Storyline

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.

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Plot Keywords:

oral sex | female frontal nudity | female nudity | lesbian kiss | f rated | 

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Taglines:

It's happening so fast.

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Genres:

Drama

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for drug use, self destructive violence, language and sexuality - all involving young teens

Details

Official Sites:

official site

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English Spanish Portuguese

Release Date:

19 September 2003 (USA)

Also Known As:

Thirteen

Filming Locations:

California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$1,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$116,260, 24 August 2003, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$4,599,680, 14 December 2003

Company Credits

Production Co:

Fox Searchlight Pictures, Michael London Productions, Working Title Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Eliza Smith wrote the poem that Tracy recites in the beginning of the film.

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Goofs

The contents of Tracy's garbage can when she throws out her socks at the beginning of the film.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Tracy: Hit me. I'm serious, I can't feel anything, hit me! Again, do it harder! I can't feel anything, this is so awesome!

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Crazy Credits

Art department assistant & "chicken trick" inventor -- Alden Wallace

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Connections

References Crossroads (2002)

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Soundtracks

Better Than Me
Written and Performed by Eddie Baytos

User Reviews

Fake Reality Show -- Lurching Handheld camera made me seasick

ONE STAR on both the technical and emotional levels.

If it is possible to have a fake reality show (all reality shows are largely fake, trust me I know from relatives in the business, they are scripted and edited, with a few real unscripted moments left in), then this one resembles a totally faked reality show. The target audience seems to be other teens with microscopic MTV-level attention spans.

There is no real introduction to the characters; we are launched into a set of jarring moments in the life of these characters that we are given no reason to care about. I thought this was a piece of MTV-era trash from the first minute of the movie, and hoped I was wrong.

Why are we supposed to care about two airheads when from the beginning when we are given no emotional reason to sympathize with them? If a car had hit them by surprise I would have cared more about the horror suffered by passing children.

They did not use a simple steadycam. Could they not afford one? No, we are supposed to think this is cool. The camera rolls so badly early in the film, I felt like I was back on the lurching deck of a little scuba boat in the Caribbean that made me heave over the side. It made me ill and I had to look away from the nauseating screen. Did they think that made the scene real?

Furthermore, in several scenes, the characters go in and out of the frame and the cameraman seems to be refocusing the camera as the characters move. Is this supposed to be MTV genius or just incompetence because someone's Mom did the camera work?

The sound quality is sometimes atrocious. I just turned the subtitles on to catch the occasional whisper or slurred speech. Didnt they know about voice-overs, or is this another failed attempt to seem real?

We are supposed to be shocked, shocked that mere thirteen year old white girls that look pretty normal have a secret life drinking, taking drugs, stealing from a store, using the "F word", and kissing black boys in a kind of group grope on the lawn. I never suffered from the illusion that teenagers were ever angels. I used to be one and nothing is wrong with my memory of that warped era of desperate conformists looking to get laid and sometimes drunk and high. But these girls were not those typical ones I recall from my high school.

I know what my Mom would have called these girls when I was in High School: "Just low class trash. Avoid them." This film, like so much trash from Hollywood, takes the lowest dregs of society and tries to convince us that this is the norm.

I get the sense that another fake "reality show" at the high school level would be more real than this. The Osborne kids kept it more "real", despite their freaky appearance.