Parents, teachers--and all adults, I think--should see the movie, "thirteen." The movie, just out on VHS/DVD, explores the often-overlooked mindset of young teenage girls. We see the main character's transformation from innocent, Hello-Kitty kid to corrupted, drug-using, sex-having, shoplifting incorrigible. As the movie progresses, we realize that she never had that Hello-Kitty myth of a childhood. Tracy's father abandoned the family and seems to avoid getting involved in the lives of his two children--Tracy has a brother who seems to have his own problems with drugs. The mother battles a drug or alcohol addiction and is dating a come-and-go boyfriend, himself a recovering crack addict. A friend of Tracy's mother stays at the house with her kid for a few days. Add to this chaotic background Evie (Evil?), played by Nikki Reed who co-wrote the script, a seemingly even more messed up girl who at the beginning of the movie represents everything that Tracy wants to become: sexy, dark, mysterious, sought after by the boys--Evie is the dark side, a symbol of the corrupt adult world. By Evie, Tracy is led to a new lifestyle as she sheds "Hello-Kitty" for thongs, lowriders, tongue and belly-button piercings, drugs, the late-night stree tlife, sex with older boys. . . a new slutty, deadly persona. Along the way of Tracy's fall over the edge (the cliff in The Catcher in the Rye), we see her struggle in her relationships with her mother, brother, absent father, and Evie, who for a while moves in with Tracy's family. It goes without saying many uncomfortable scenes occur: the opening scene (a flash forward) in which Tracy and Evie exchange blows to their drug-numbed faces, laughing as they bloody themselves; Tracy and Evie mingling or having sex with older guys in dangerous settings; a flashback of Tracy seeing her mom's boyfriend smoking some crack; Tracy getting her tongue pierced in a shady tattoo parlor; several moments when Tracy toys with suicide, self-mutilating her left wrist/forearm; and more. Many times I thought, "don't do it, Tracy," or, "Common mom, do something," or, "get away from Evie" (this last thought accompanied by slight guilt as Evie clearly needs help herself). There is not a happy ending, the character is never enlightened--rather, she descends into darkness.