PREMIERE.COM REVIEW (posted 8/20/03)

In Hardwicke's eye-opening directorial debut, the difference between 12 and 13 isn't just a year — it's a lifetime. Or so it seems.

Wood stars as Tracy, the daughter of a recovering alcoholic mother (Hunter) and out-of-the-picture father. A bright student who's dying to fit in with the popular crowd, she seeks comfort in self-mutilation (she's a "cutter") and finds expression in writing cryptic poems. But when she gets a chance to hang out with Evie Zamora (Reed), "the hottest chick in school," Tracy's teen angst is anything but slow to unravel. Trading in her pigtails for hair extensions, thongs, leather wrist cuffs, and a tongue stud, she transforms from a wholesome kid into a seething, sexualized adolescent as her mother watches in horror. What's "just experimenting" for other girls is a danger zone for Tracy, who now risks repeating the seventh grade.

An antidote to such recent pop tart fare as What a Girl Wants and The Lizzie McGuire Movie, Thirteen shares more in common with Kids, Larry Clark's gritty 1995 drama about a group of promiscuous inner-city teens, one of whom is diagnosed with HIV. Rife with up-to-the-second slang and teen dialogue that would turn most screenwriters green with envy (e.g., "Who let her out of the cabbage patch?"), if Thirteen sounds authentic, that's because it is. Hardwicke cowrote the script with a then 13-year-old Reed, with whom she had forged a friendship after dating Reed's father. Though their project started out as a lighthearted comedy, the more Hardwicke pried into the life of her young friend, the grittier the story became.

The result is a disturbing look into the so-called Wonder Years of adolescence, with convincing, award-worthy performances from each of its key players: Hunter, Wood, and Reed. Sex, shoplifting, snorting coke — it's all in here. At the same time, Hardwicke and Reed offer constant reminders as to how young these girls really are: They share a secret code language, giggle uncontrollably, and still have baby fat. They are, after all, only 13.

— Brooke Hauser