Thirteen (2003 film)

Director Catherine Hardwicke, who had worked prior as a film production designer,[2] has called Nikki Reed a "surrogate daughter", having known her since she was five years old.[3] Hardwicke had been in a long-term relationship with Reed's father for a time.[4] The two began the screenplay as a comedy project which would be shot to video at minimal cost.[4] The screenplay was written over a period of six days in January 2002,[4] and quickly shifted into a tale of early teen angst and self-destruction in Los Angeles, with Tracy's character drawn from Reed's own recent experiences as an adolescent early teen.[4] Reed said she specifically was inspired by experiencing her friends' arrests for dealing methamphetamine when she was thirteen years old.[5]

After completing the script, Hardwicke pitched the idea to various producers she knew, but said that most were "terrified" of the project because of the subject matter.[4]

Hardwicke didn't think it would be fitting for Reed to play Tracy and auditioned hundreds of girls for the part. After becoming aware of Evan Rachel Wood, Hardwicke came to believe she could make the film only with Wood in the role of Tracy and only that year, with Wood at that age.[4]

Hardwicke has said Holly Hunter's agreement to play the role of Tracy's mother Melanie was a key boost to bringing the production together; she met with Hunter in New York City to discuss the film, after which Hunter agreed to take the part.[4] Hunter recalled: "I read the script and it was a very visceral experience. It's extremely raw, it was not a filled-in picture. It felt more like a feeling than anything else. And that's unusual for a script to communicate like that. It sort of declares itself, it comes at you. And the movie does, too. And that's unusual, for a movie to be able to have the same impetus on the screen that it has on the page."[6] Brie Larson, who was herself 13 when the film released, auditioned for one of the parts in the film but was rejected.[7]

Hardwicke subsequently managed to raise approximately $2 million, almost all through independent equity financing. Most of the adult actors were widely known and all of them reportedly agreed to low pay because they liked the script along with other members of the cast and crew. Wood and Reed were both 14 years old during filming (Wood turned 15 during the shoot).[8]

Thirteen was shot on lower-cost super 16mm film over a period of 24 days.[4] The camera was small, had a Panavision lens and was mostly hand-held by cinematographer Elliot Davis, which helped achieve a documentary, "cinéma vérité" style.[2][9] Principal photography took place on location[2] in Los Angeles, with Melrose Avenue, Hollywood Boulevard, and Venice Beach serving as filming locations. The Freeland home scenes were shot at a rented house in the San Fernando Valley. The outdoor school scenes were shot at Portola Middle School in Tarzana, California.

Some scenes in the film were carefully and colorfully lit, while others were shot only with whatever daylight could be had. Due to child labor laws, the underage performers were only allowed to work a regulated number of hours per day.[4] This made for a frenetic production atmosphere, which cast and crew later said matched the script and added to the film's fast and emotionally taut pace. The film stock was transferred to the digital domain wherein the colors and saturation were highly manipulated for some segments.[8] The beginning of the film was very slightly desaturated in the scenes before Tracy became friends with Evie. Once they became friends, the saturation was increased to a "glowy" effect, according to Hardwicke. After the scene where Evie and Tracy make out with Luke, the saturation slowly becomes less and less until the end of the film, especially after Evie is told that she can't live with Tracy anymore and Tracy is abandoned by the popular group.

The wardrobe worn by the girls was mostly their own. As filming progressed, the girls began dressing similarly without being asked to do so. The girls did not take any dangerous substances during the film. They are shown smoking cigarettes, but these were filled mostly with catnip. The crushed pills they are shown snorting from the cover of a children's book were harmless dietary supplements.

All of the scenes in which Tracy cut herself were shot in a single day; Wood recalled running to her brother for emotional support between some takes. Wood later described the shooting of the two make out scenes with Javi and Luke as "awkward" because her family was watching behind the scenes. Wood's mother requested that in the scenes with Tracy's bra exposed, that the front of her not be seen on camera. The whole scene with Luke was rendered in a single, long and uncut take with Wood, Reed and Pardue, but was tightly choreographed with several crew members, social workers and parents also in the small room, carefully staying either hidden or behind the camera as it panned more than 200°, showing all four walls.[8]

Thirteen was picked up by Fox Searchlight Pictures after production was completed.[10] The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival on January 17, 2003.[11][12] In the United States, it was given a limited release on August 20, 2003 in New York City, followed by its Los Angeles premiere on August 22.[13] At the film's premiere screenings in Manhattan, brochures for Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) were distributed.[10]

During its opening weekend, the film earned $116,260 at the U.S. box office, showing on 5 screens.[14] Its release expanded to 243 theaters on September 19, 2003, and it went on to gross a total of $4,601,043 in the United States before concluding its theatrical run on December 18, 2003.[14] In international markets, it grossed a further $5,527,917, making for a worldwide gross of $10.1 million.[14]

Film critic Roger Ebert awarded the film three-and-a-half out of four stars, writing: "Who is this movie for? Not for most 13-year-olds, that's for sure. The R rating is richly deserved, no matter how much of a lark the poster promises. Maybe the film is simply for those who admire fine, focused acting and writing; Thirteen sets a technical problem that seems insoluble, and meets it brilliantly, finding convincing performances from its teenage stars. showing a parent who is clueless but not uncaring, and a world outside that bedroom window that has big bad wolves, and worse."[15] Elvis Mitchell of The New York Times wrote: "The movie has the ebb and flow that come from material structured as a series of anecdotes—it doesn't build, and sometime feels as cluttered as a 13-year-old's bedroom. But that may be a byproduct of Catherine Hardwicke, making her directorial debut, working to layer incidents that are as far as possible from the weary set of clichés that inform pictures about teenagers. Usually, the protagonist is the bystander—in Thirteen, she's the fuse."[16]

Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis characterized the film as an "arty exploitation flick," adding: "Only audiences that have been locked inside a bomb shelter for the last 50 years will be shocked by what happens in Thirteen. The clothes are scantier and the music heavier on the bass since James Dean yelled "You're tearing me apart!" to his befuddled father in the mid-1950s melodrama Rebel Without a Cause. But the story about the anguished outsider trying to fit in no matter what hasn't changed much since the movies discovered the troubled teenager."[17] The Washington Post's Laura Stepp noted in her review that the film "portrays adolescence at its most desperate. If you have a daughter in her early teens or almost there, the R-rated film will make you want to run home, hold her tightly for a few minutes and then lock her up while you struggle with all the questions the film raises but doesn't answer."[18]

The Hollywood Reporter called the film "a chilling look at a pair of contemporary Valley girls—13-year-olds who are way beyond their years but also are nearly beyond repair,"[11] while the Chicago Tribune's Michael Wilmington called it "an excellent, unforgettable film," but also deemed it "extremely disturbing."[2]

The film has an 81% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 154 reviews with an average rating of 7.29/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "An emotionally wrenching, not to mention terrifying, film about the perils of being a teenager."[19] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 37 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[20]