THIRTEEN

Director: Catherine Hardwicke (direction debut, notable career in production design)
Starring: Evan Rachel Wood, Nikkie Reed, Holly Hunter

Thirteen is a quite good, albeit disturbing, story about the wolves circling every household. It's about the inevitability that children desire to be dumb and wrong. Mostly it's about the importance of security and what we'll do for it.

Thirteen year old Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) rapidly disintigrates from being a nice if unpopular little girl, to a drugged-out, sexed-out and pierced-out mess of a human being thanks in large part to her new, and popular, friend Evie. Evie simply knows too much about the worst in life and too little about the best, and Tracy eats it up. Why does this happen? Why are these teenagers so stupid? The movie luckily doesn't try to give the pat (and often poor) response of bad parenting. It goes a little deeper, showing inate desires, and dangerous environments, as well as the swirling confused lives of the parents of these children. There's really no way around this, but we all learn a lot on how to behave from those around us, and this is doubly true for children. Having a friend like Evie can go a long way in affecting how you turn out.

As a final note, Holly Hunter gave a wonderful performance as Mel, Tracy's divorced mother. It's no wonder she couldn't help as much as she could have while her child was imploding when she was struggling through AA meetings and money troubles and an Ex-husband and her coked-up boyfriend and her "goddamn $1.50 a square foot floor". She's trying, very hard, and Holly Hunter shows it.

Standouts: A well-written story, Holly Hunter
Blowouts: A few over the top-isms here and there.

Grade: A-