thirteen Review

If this was a fair world, "thirteen" should be compulsory viewing not only for parents but also for the film's subject matter themselves: teenagers currently wallowing in the depths of adolescent despair up to their newly whiffy armpits. But saddled as it is with an 18 certificate, this utterly absorbing and unpatronising portrait of what it means to be a teenager today will have to be content at scaring parents right to their very cores. Co-written by one of the teenage stars of the film, it's the story of grade A student Tracy who swaps her Barbie dolls for buttock-hugging thongs after she falls in with Evie, the most popular girl at high school. No sooner has she ditched her old mates then she's pulling boys, taking more and more drugs and indulging in repeated bouts of self-harm, while all the time moving further and further way from her alarmed single mother.

Heavy material it certainly is but 'thirteen' is refreshingly handled by first-time director and co-writer Catherine Hardwicke and brought to life by a superb cast. Rachel Evan Wood is scarily convincing - and realistically bitchy - as the transformed teenager while Holly Hunter is heartbreaking as the rejected mother utterly at a loss as to how to help her suddenly untouchable daughter. And even though at times it dips into the teenage hysteria it's meant to be exploring, so knowing and sympathetic is the movie's portrayal of adolescence that you can't help but be buoyed by the film's guardedly optimistic close.