Thirteen

An adolescent valley girl (Evan Rachel Wood) goes flagrantly wrong under the influence of a debauched and amoral friend (Nikki Reed), while her clueless white-trash mother (Holly Hunter) wrings her hands on the sidelines. Newcomer Reed reportedly wrote the script (with director Catherine Hardwicke) as therapy for her own turbulent life, and it makes sense: an overheated psychodrama by a self-pitying adolescent is exactly how the film plays. The acting is excellent, and Hardwicke gives it a grainy video realism, but the film feels random and formless, with a flat, inconclusive ending. The most interesting touch is that young Reed wrote herself into the role of the villain—the lying, promiscuous tempter—instead of casting herself as the good girl led astray by raging hormones and bad companions.