Coming of Age Films—Thirteen

From the story of a 15-year-old boy in last week’s look at Almost Famous to the story of a 13- year-old girl in this week’s Thirteen [2003] by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed, we go from a story set in the slightly crazed 70s to the insane new century where coming of age is way tougher. At least in Los Angeles.

Almost Famous had a lightness and a fun to it—even when the main character was in the middle of lots of angst. He was coming of age, but compared to the coming of age in Thirteen, Almost Famous is tame.

Take a look at the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6GNVEWFnCU

What words would you use to describe the film? Gritty? Wild? Unhinged? Sad? Dark? Crazy? All are right—and none of them are even close to ‘lightness’ or ‘fun.’

Where does a film this edgy come from? Well, Thirteen’s provenance is particularly interesting. Writer Catherine Hardwicke was dating Nikki Reed’s dad. She and Nikki became close and Nikki let Catherine read her diary. Catherine thought that a young teen girl’s POV on her life in this new century was the stuff films were made of. So she and Nikki collaborated in fleshing out the diary entries and morphing them into a film.

When the film came out, reactions were mixed. Some hailed it as a window into contemporary teen life. Others laughed that it was about one wild teen and didn’t reflect most teens at all. Raves included critics like Duane Byrge in the Hollywood Reporter who said the film was “An engaging, sympathetic portrait of junior high girls who have grown up too fast and way too little.” This contrasts with Jim Agnew in Film Threat who reacted to another critic’s view that Thirteen was like a Bret Easton Ellis novel: “This isn’t a new spin on Bret Easton Ellis, it’s more like a 90-minute Saved by the Bell episode with better music.”

While, overall, the film was a critical success, it wasn’t a huge financial success. It made money because its budget was so small, but the gross in the US was just $4.6 million. People did not go see this film in droves.

Why? Well, first, it was R-rated, so the audience for the film—young teens—couldn’t see it without a parent accompanying them. And not many parents wanted their teens to see what THIS girl was doing in the film! No way. But secondly, for most of the country, it just wasn’t realistic. Big city coming of age is different than small town coming of age, so it had that going against it. And finally, it was just super dark—with no humor at all. There was no relief from the constant drama and wildness… and that was hard for a lot of people to take.

The writer got lots of praise for the film, for sure, and having the courage to do a coming of age film that was so contemporary most people couldn’t take it was, indeed, courageous.

Next week, it’s a film that came out the year after Thirteen and was way more successful.

Copyright © Diane Lake

03Oct21

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