Thirteen: a moving picture of adolescent reality

The teen psyche is complex. Peer pressure lurks in every piercing, every pair of skin-tight jeans, every bottle of beer, every sexual encounter, and every so-called friend. Thirteen is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of the decisions that plague adolescence and how easy it is for a teenager in need of acceptance to descend into a downward spiral with just the exchange of a smile.

Evie (Nikki Reed) is the "it" girl of seventh grade. The boys want her and the girls want to be her, especially Tracie (Evan Rachel Wood). After a seemingly friendly exchange in the hallways of their middle school, Tracie gets Evie's phone number and a new friend. Their first play date finds the two on seedy Melrose Avenue stealing wallets, shoplifting provocative thongs and barely-there almost-all-spandex jeans, and getting high on acid with older boys with whom they are newly acquainted.

The two continue down self-destructive paths. Tracie, who is all-too-willing to become cool, fails to see Evie's manipulative ways, instead seeing only a friend who she thinks has all the answers. Evie, however, sees Tracie as a tool to find the family she never had. Her mother left her, and she is living with an undetermined relative, was possibly beaten, and is just looking for love, taking Tracie along for the ride.

This dysfunctional relationship is only one of many in Tracie's life. Her mom, Mel (Holy Hunter), is a teenager living in an adult's body. Mel parallels her daughter not only in fashion sense, both donning hip-hugging jeans and slinky tank tops, but also in her need to be loved. The two go head to head on various nights, neither able to convey their emotions to each other, both cursing and both storming off to the solace they have found in other places: Tracie to Evie, and Mel to her recovering crack addict on-again, off-again boyfriend.

Reed, Hunter and Wood all do wonderful jobs of giving human faces to the problems of teen girls and single moms. Reed, who co-wrote the screenplay based on experiences from her own thirteenth year, masters the popular girl complex. The evil eye, the hair flip, and the walk all fit her naturally, along with her innocent smile and large, naïve eyes. As much as the viewer looks to Evie as the character to hate, Reed is just as able to make the viewer empathetic toward her. Hunter's performance as Mel is phenomenal; her emotion is raw without being overdone, her problems are believable without taking away from Tracie's.

Director Catherine Hardwicke, who co-wrote the screenplay with Reed, is able to add a personal dynamic to the story through her direction. The cinematography is choppy and grainy, and the camera angle is never quite still and sometimes not quite in focus. This use of photography to convey emotion deepens the personal connection between the viewer and Wood.

Thirteen is symbolic of the universal need to be accepted by one's peers, and the lengths one will go to ensure that the dream of acceptance is reality.