Film Review: Thirteen

Thirteen is a movie centered on two very different teenage girls, and what happens when they become best friends. Tracy starts off as what you would call a “good girl” trying to make it in a new school. She quickly notices Evie, the most popular girl in school, and sees the amount of attention Evie gets. It is apparent that Tracy yearns to be like her, and suddenly decides to do everything she can to be her friend. Tracy finally earns Evie’s acceptance after pick pocketing a woman’s wallet when she is rejected from a shopping trip with Evie and her friends. Tracy and Evie become very close and it all turns into a downward spiral from there. Thanks to Evie, Tracy experiences stealing, sex, drugs (using and dealing), and lying to her mother who she was once very close with. It isn’t long before Tracy’s new world and attitude takes a toll on her, her family, and old friends.

Thirteen is a quintessential girl movie. I could definitely see Tracy’s character in some of the girls in Red. Like them I think she was begging to be heard, and she also had similar issues as some of the girls in their stories. I have never seen a movie more accurately depict a period of life that many girls go through. I think it is a stage when girls suddenly are not okay with who they are anymore, or are confused about who they are. This period is usually accompanied with a change in a once very close mother daughter relationship. It is like they were walking on the same path and the daughter suddenly veers to the left. This can be hard for both parties. Tracy was trying to grow up, but she was going about it in all the wrong ways. Seeing Tracy fight with her mother, and her mother’s confusion about where her little girl went felt all too familiar, although when I went through this stage it wasn’t as intense as Tracy’s experience. Tracy reached a point where she did not want to be seen as a little girl anymore, and she did everything in her power to break this image. She craved the independence that Evie seemed to have. Anytime she felt like her mother was treating her like a child, she flew off the handle. I think she believed that her only ally was Evie, and it becomes obvious that this isn’t doing her any good when she starts cutting herself. This movie shows how important a strong family bond is for a young girl. Tracy’s parents are divorced and it has an effect on her emotions. The one time we see her dad in the film it is apparent that he is pretty much unavailable to her. Young girls need their parents. In a world that sends out so many mixed messages, it is crucial that girls have their parents to turn to so that they can be reminded about what wonderful people they are, regardless of what society and the media is putting in their head. This movie really reinforced the importance of a mother daughter relationship for me. All I kept thinking to myself while watching it was, “This girl needs her mother!”