Thirteen

Produced by Tim Bevan, Liza Chasin, Eric Fellner and Holly Hunter; directed by Catherine Hardwicke; screenplay by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed; cinematography by Elliot Davis; original music by Mark Mothersbaugh; edited by Nancy Richardson; production design by Carol Stober; costume design by Cindy Evans; starring Evan Rachel Wood, Nikki Reed, Holly Hunter, Jeremy Sisto, Brady Corbet and Deborah Unger; Color, 100 mins. Distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures, 10201 West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035, phone (310) 369-4402.

Adolescence, we all know, represents a period of intense emotional upheaval. Psychiatrists like Erik Erikson describe it as a time characterized by the struggle between an eternal wish to cling to a childhood past, while, at the same time, an equally powerful wish to break away into the promised land of adulthood. While many adolescents awkwardly experiment with sex, true sexual intimacy with a boyfriend or girlfriend is impossible until a young person has given up, once and for all, the childish aspects of attachment to his or her parents. In a perfect world, adolescents hold on to the valuable things their parents pass along, while bidding farewell to the idealized notion that their parents were more than simply human. Thirteen revolves around many of the painful truths of adolescence. The film is about how thirteen-year-old Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), bored by school and indifferent to her mothers struggles, suddenly decides bad girls have more fun. A copycat at heart, Tracy initiates a friendship with Alpha she-wolf Evie (played by actress and coscreenwriter Nikki Reed) who transports Tracy out of her junior-high classrooms into a teen world of sex, drugs, and petty larceny. Rebellion endows Tracy with drive and energyalso accompanied by lack of direction, confusion, and zero self-respect. Its in this preliminary take of Tracy, that Thirteens director, Catherine Hardwicke, serves up a flashy portrait of a troubled young girl, who, in all likelihood, is wondering to herself why she took all the crazy risks she did once the films ninety-five-minute runningtime has elapsed. Tracys frenzied odyssey begins on Melrose Avenue, where Evieher newly adopted teenage-wasteland tour guidelikes to browse the racks of trendy boutiques Winona-Ryder-style. In an effort to strike a chord of admiration in Evies shoplifting heart, Tracy suddenly finds herself stealing some foggy Angelenas purse. Then, together with the stoked Evie, the girls take off on a big, thrilling shoe-shopping spree. Thirteen wants to be taken seriously, and Hardwicke attempts to enlist the attention of serious-minded audiences by flirting with subjects filling library bookshelves with psychoanalytic literature. Kleptomania is the first dysfunction Hardwicke calls to our
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attention. It was once perceived as providing an erotic thrill but more recently, psychoanalysts have refined their thinking. Kleptomaniacs are often young men and women attempting to escape from threats to their psychological survival. They feel theyve been deprived of some fundamental security in their personal relationships, and they interpret stealing more as an entitlement than a crime. In a city as rampantly obsessed with consumerism as Los Angeles, with its near-blind worship of all things material, the feelings Hardwicke ascribes to Tracy are only intensified. In Thirteen, Tracy and Evie get terribly excited about stealing, whether money or cool clothing, and its easy to imagine a psychiatrist observing that the girls actionsand the elation they experienceserves to reassure them theyre not being abandoned by their families. Their deep-seated anxieties are relieved, at least temporarily. The second psychological disorder Hardwicke unloads on her audienceone that guaranteed the film its conspicuous and sought-after controversyis a rare one. Practiced almost exclusively among teenage girls, delicate self-cutting is the form of self-mutilation Tracy secretly and sensationally practices in Thirteen. Psychoanalyst Louise J. Kaplan, in her book, Female Perversions: The Temptation of Emma Bovary, writes that, [f]or the self-mutilator, who has already suffered a childhood of loss and deprivation and trauma, to accept that the childhood past is over and that there is no way of redeeming failed hopes would mean an unleashing of violent hatred towards the depriving ones, which dashes all hope of a forgiving reunion with them. For such an adolescent, therefore, the painful process of mourning, with all its undercurrent of abandonment, [and] separation, is unendurable. The idea Fox Searchlight Films is trying

to sell is that Thirteen portrays a young girl experiencing a lot of pain in her life and that she deals with it in the manner Kaplan describes. By showing Tracys girlfriend gleefully punching her smack in the face at the outset of the filmor, later, by showing Tracy mutilating herselfwere supposed to be witnessing how teenagers learn not to feel pain. When Hardwicke shows Tracy locking herself up in the bathroom, opening the medicine cabinet, and cutting her wrist with a small, shiny pair of scissors, were supposed to believe this girl is simply overwhelmed by a sense of her own insignificance. But the problem with the movie is that nothing we witness supports the filmmakers theory. It would be emotionally inconceivable that when Tracys mom (played beautifully by actress Holly Hunter) brings a strange man into the housea recovering drug addict at thatTracy wouldnt feel this to be a scary intrusion. Yet, the extent to which Tracy indulges her fears of her moms boyfriend, Brady (played by the charismatic Jeremy Sisto), seems out of whack. In fact, Bradys quest in Thirteen is not all that different from Tracyscertainly not as unrelated as the screenwriters might lead you to believe. Like Tracy, Brady is a searcher, but a man who knows the grim downside of soaring off into never-never land. Like all recovering addicts, Brady must find himself. Hes forced, without drugs, to look at something in himselfhis own failurethat few men must fully face. Confronting failure honestly has the potential to evoke genuine human insightif not artin the face of seemingly overwhelming anxiety, torture, and temptation. Yet at no point does Hardwicke feel any compunction to acknowledge the courage reflected in Bradys quiet attempt to reject a dishonest lifeor to examine how this might positively impact Tracy.

Melanie (Holly Hunter, left), mother to thirteen-year-old Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), has difficulty in relating to her troubled daughter in Catherine Hardwickes Thirteen.

For instance, its easy to see drug addiction as a form of masochism, a subject the filmmakers dont hesitate to exploit when they turn their cameras on Tracy. Drug use is a daily mechanistic ritual, too, one that in its own perverse waykeeps alive whatever sense of life and joy an addict is capable of feeling. Yet instead of bringing clarity to the dilemma that Brady shares with his girlfriends daughter, Hardwicke instead sets up her male protagonist, at least in Tracys eyes, as some sort of vaguely sinister bogeyman. Theres a quick, obtuse, and nightmarish burst of scenes in Thirteen, and we dont know with any degree of certainty whether what were watching entails some sort of attempted sexual assault or not. We see Tracy, petrified with fear, standing before Brady as he thrashes about in some sort of drug or alcohol-induced frenzy. Perhaps, the director sees this as Bradys own version of acting out. What truly defines Brady however, thanks to Sistos calm and transfixing presence, is his desire for a new kind of freedomthe freedom from having to do or take anything. As a fresh, unexpected source of inspiration for Tracys liberation from slavish behavior, the endless possibilities Brady offers in Thirteen are ignored. Holly Hunter, as Tracys mom Melanie, is not some aloof suburban puritan, much less a spaced-out coke-whore turning tricks in the living room. Nor is she one of those clueless parents who mindlessly forces her own child to experience what she went through when she was an adolescent. Melanie is a woman keenly aware of her young daughters needs to be understood, noticed, taken seriously, and respected. Shes learned something from life. Melanie is a loving, available parent, hip to the absurdities of teenage life. She tries as hard as she possibly can to provide a warmhearted climate for her children. Shes not perfectwho is?yet even in this respect she reveals adulthoods own false roads. If anything, perhaps Melanie identifies a little too much with her teenage daughter. Trying to make ends meet as a hair stylist, Melanie, it is clear, has made no huge investment in her own education or job training. If shes guilty of anything, its downward mobility. Perhaps Melanies own adolescent dreams and ideals have impeded her assuming the fiscalif not moralresponsibilities of adulthood. Paradoxically, it is the intensely palpable humanity that Hunter brings to her portrayal of Tracys mother that makes Tracys selfmutilations feel so entirely gratuitous. Melanies many and considerable virtues both as mother and friendundermine the emotional logic of the film. Her home is no haven of prosperityit is comfortable, if frayed around the edgesalthough Tracy considers it substandard, and no doubt many successful Hollywood art directors would agree. But Tracys universe doesnt extend far beyond the repository of hip conformity that is Melrose Avenue. There are

no burning issues on her fertile teenage mind beyond shopping. Issues that might incite the same righteous indignation as caviling about the paltry amount of her fathers child support checkssay, for instance, the fate of the countless thirteen-year-old illegal immigrants coming to Los Angeles each year, the sheer number of teenagers murdered in South Central and East L.A. on a daily basis, or the amount of federal and state spending allocated to the citys health care and education of young peoplethese things are all way off this girls radar, and that of the film. No doubt placing Tracys woes in any kind of realistic moral or social context would detract from Thirteens colossally self-absorbed drama, just as the films myriad decoration schemes and flashy juxtapositions attempt to enhance it. A creeping and uncomfortable awareness dawns on us that this girls sense of anger and despair is far, far out of proportion. Fundamentally, Tracy is lucky. Despite Tracys trendy kind of energy and self-confidenceand her supreme talent for masking her own inner turmoilit would make far more dramatic sense to attribute her dark, self-destructive moods to Evie. Evies emotionally remote mother Brooke, played deftly by Deborah Unger, is so completely self-absorbed, so emotionally shaky, that we silently wonder why Evie isnt the girl holed up in the bathroom slashing her wrist. Perhaps its a belief of the writers that Evies way of dealingof repressing her own sense of pain and lossis in simply mirroring her mothers shallow, predatory behavior. Which brings up another of the films self-congratulatory promotional claims that the screenplay was coauthored by thirteen-year-old actress, Nikki Reed. The publicity surrounding the teenage screenwriter/ actor feels more like a built-in excuse to overlook the scripts thinness, or worse, another cynical marketing ploy. Thirteens characters often suffer from an inability to express whats bugging them. In a sense, you could say that is an accurate depiction. But its difficult to empathize with characters, when access to their emotional world is limited to flashy, kinetic images, and a catchy soundtrack. A serious appreciation of Tracy and Evies vicissitudes could be enhanced by a screenwriters willingnessor abilityto put their feelings into words. Its not an easy task, but when distributors draw attention to the script, they must take responsibility for it. Lots of people want to read a script to deepen their understanding of a good movie. One imagines that in the case of Thirteen, as Joan Didion once remarked in a different context, such an understanding might emerge as much from the deal memo. The cutie-pie ending is a case in point. The bad girls get their comeuppance, and the good girls hang tough. Instead of hating herself now, Tracy can hate the movies two evil-minded scapegoatsEvie and her mother.

No one doubts that allowing young people to experience their legitimate emotions is a liberating thingand when presented realistically our awareness of humanity is enlarged. Take a look at Star Maps, Boys Dont Cry, or Raising Victor Vargas, for instance. Sure, teenage life is harsh, but what we see in Thirteen isnt reality, despite the films (and its distributors) inflated claims. Thirteen doesnt push boundaries. It merely panders to a market willing to buy the hype that it somehow is pushing boundaries.Robert
Goethals

Shattered Glass
Produced by Craig Baumgarten, Adam Merims, Gaye Hirsch and Tove Christensen; written and directed by Billy Ray; cinematography by Mandy Walker; edited by Jeffrey Ford; production design by Franois Sguin; costume design by Rene April; music by Mychael Danna; starring Hayden Christensen, Peter Sarsgaard, Hank Azaria, Chlo Sevigny, Melanie Lynskey, Steve Zahn, Rosario Dawson, Cas Anvar. Color, 103 mins. Distributed by Lions Gate Films, 4553 Glencoe Avenue #200, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292, phone (310) 314-2000.

The filmmakers of Shattered Glass, no less than nearly all others who have commented on the Stephen Glass scandal, seem haunted by the legend of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. As viewers of All the Presidents Men will recall, those two young Washington Post metropolitan reporters took on the President of the United States, exposed Richard Nixons lies about the Watergate break-in, and accomplished no less (so that film would have us believe) than the salvation of the Republic. Their saga hovers over Shattered Glass as a shining example, a challenge, and also something of a mocking irony for the screen retelling of how, a quarter century later, rival reporters exposed the lies of a magazine journalist and helped to rescue not the Republic, but The New Republic. Its as if no one can look at the Stephen Glass affair without unconsciously invoking the old Marxian truism that history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce. Glasss story unfolds in the film during 1998 as the admired young writer for the venerable Washington political weekly tumbles into ignominy as a serial fabricator of his news reports. Once the first breach in his credibility is established, despite Glasss extraordinary efforts at concealment, a final tally reveals that twenty-seven of the fortyone articles he wrote for the magazine were based on invented facts and falsehood. This gross breach of journalistic ethics that Shattered Glass dramatizes has been made even more pertinent by the uncanny replication of its main features in the Jayson Blair affair at The New York Times. Why would the
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