'Thirteen' (2003) Peanuts Rating: The Whole Peanut

Tender care of ripe

and tender flesh,

the burgeoning life inside.

Care for need,

experimental touch,

so as not to bruise

or hinder growth,

for the child of mother's blossom.

A harshly tender and sometimes disturbing story of a child thrown suddenly in a world of peer criticism while struggling with the emotional conflicts arising within her own family, however much her mother may care and love her and show it. It isn't the practically pornographic film some have led us to believe, nor is it obnoxiously destructive or depressing. Even in a film like this, they managed a very positive ending, although not a falsely happy one. And, unlike many in this line of stories, the mother truly does care about her daughter and shows it strongly and consistently. Problems lie in far more indirect ways, to show us everything affects a child, or anyone who deeply cares for you.

To say the lead family's existence is a normal suburban pleasantness would be slightly off course. The parents are divorced, Tracy lives with her mother and brother, her mother, Melanie, is a terribly affectionate mother but lets others take advantage of her generosity and understanding, including her husband. She also has some sort of past problem requiring a support group, and a recurring boyfriend who always leaves and has come back soon into the film. And, as always, there are some money problems, but none particularly debilitating. What affects Tracy most stems from what she sees her mother do to herself in letting people walk all over her sense of generosity. And seeing the boyfriend, Brady, come back was pretty much the last straw for her concern to bear.

Now couple this with being thrown in to the giant pot of adolescent hierarchy and power struggles called high school. This boils up quite the potential for disaster in this thirteen year old girl, and it strikes hot with a cloud of billowing steam to accompany it. Another girl, Evie, finds in her someone to clamp onto like a parasite and feed off of, almost as if bound by some psychological survival to do so. Worlds crumble and empires fall, and the people around Tracy are left to desperately hoist up the walls as they disintegrate in their bare hands.

Article Author: Josh Parkinson

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