Thirteen: Analyzing a Teenage Girl’s Complex Mind
The haunting scene of a teen girl screaming into the air while on a playground merry-go-round was the final shot of Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen; it left a tattoo in my mind. How could a movie about two young teenagers in the suburbs in the 2000s be almost like a horror movie? And how did it age as if nothing truly changed? Apart from the bell bottoms and layered tanks and jelly sandals, the film rings a tone almost too familiar.
Reflecting back a year after my initial watch of Thirteen, there’s so much to say about this film. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, who I know best as the director of the first Twilight film, it’s also coming from the mind of Nikki Reed, also lovely in Twilight, who had a keen role in molding a lot of the plot line. Hardwicke, who was dating Reed’s father, began script writing the screenplay based on Reed’s own teenage experience. Tracy was based on Reed, but Reed ended up playing a different role; Tracy’s manipulative new best friend. Evan Rachel Wood ended up playing Reed’s character, while they were around fourteen. In a summary, Thirteen follows Tracy Freeland, a thirteen year old living in Los Angeles. She’s a free spirit, often poetic and has a shy, small group of friends. But, like so many, she falls for the grace and appeal of popularity, looking to Evie Zamora, a popular, pretty girl. The two eventually became friends and grow inseparable. But they engage in reckless behavior, concerning Evie’s mother and it eventually leads to betrayal and an explosion of emotions.
p1. FAMILY DYNAMICS
The family dynamics in this film are what hits it at its core and makes it so emotional. At the beginning of the film, Tracy has an on and off relationship with her mother. With her parents separated, she lives primarily with her mom and older brother. At the beginning of the film, Tracy reads her poetry to her mom and it sheds light on a raw bond. But it isn’t perfect. Tracy is appalled by the man her mother is dating, having a breakdown every time he spends the night. The film sets up the plot that Tracy’s life isn’t perfect and cheery initially. She has these issues and I think she believed she could cope with them through popularity and recklessness. Her mother tries to make ends meet as a hairdresser and I think the small, just enough amount of money her mother made, was one of the things that causes Tracy to get involved in stealing; she has enough, she just wanted more.
Her and her brother’s bond was realistic. They fought, got into arguments, and this only worsened as she fell further down her spiral. She wasn’t even worried whether she was being caught doing illegal things by her brother, she took advantage of it and knew he wouldn’t tell their mother, which aided Tracy to go on and be worse.
But Evie Zamora’s familial relationships are a turning point in the film. Evie lives with her aunt, Brooke, who’s an aspiring starlet that isn’t around much. This sort of allows Evie to be free and do reckless things on her own, she didn’t have a parent holding her back. But, of course, she did want a parental figure, so she looked to Tracy. She took advantage of Tracy and Tracy’s mother, Melanie’s hospitality. As Tracy and Evie grew close, Mel and Evie also grew closer. The two bonded over their lack of mother figures and Evie opened up about Brooke’s violent boyfriend. But at the end climax of the film, Evie learned Mel isn’t going to adopt her, contrary to what she thought. Tracy wasn’t going to be her sister and she would have to stay with Brooke forever. This is clearly the turning point of the film in which it proves as one of the many reasons Evie Zamora lied about Tracy being the influence on their reckless crimes.
p2. GIRLHOOD & FRIENDSHIPS
Knowing well about good friendships, bad friendships, and trust, the film makes it almost unclear about the dynamics of Evie and Tracy’s friendship. Though on the surface, it seems like Evie was the sole bad influence and ringleader throughout the relationship, deeper, it’s questionable. It needs to be kept in mind that these are 13 year old girls. To think about the maturity level and the ability to make good decisions makes it somewhat understandable why everyone did what they did. I think the level of codependency the two had was bound to end up disastrous. Tracy had innocent, quieter friends initially, so meeting Evie, who was wild, popular, loud, everything Tracy wanted but never experienced, it changed her. But the question was if Evie molded Tracy to become reckless, rude, and immature or if only hanging out with Evie brought out these characteristics she already had. It’s clear that Tracy wasn’t the bad influence on Evie, but she was an influence.
p3. UNDERSTANDING EVIE ZAMORA
“The interesting thing is I actually play Evie, who’s more the manipulative, like conniving- she’s the wild child.” - Nikki Reed on Ellen, 2003.
On the surface, Evie Zamora is perfect; she’s pretty, popular, charismatic, knows how to talk to boys, she’s fun- that’s her allure. And for the main part of the film, we see this. While we see so many shades of Tracy, it’s hard to understand Evie. Evie is obviously a bad influence. She takes Tracy to get piercings, she gets excited when stealing, they flirt with older guys. But it’s clear the influence Tracy had on Evie. Evie has a tight shell around her, but throughout the film, she’s more vulnerable. She’s no longer on a high pedestal to Tracy, they’re equals. But Evie makes bad decisions. She’s caught messing around with the guy Tracy clearly liked. She sneaks out of Tracy’s house with another guy. But I think this is her defense mechanism. It’s clear she had a rough early childhood and all these reckless behaviors draw attention away from the fact that she’s seriously messed up and hurt. But at a certain point, this is all shed away and she’ s truly at her lowest, knowing that Mel won’t adopt her and she won’t be free of the life she’s forcing herself to live. She’s gotten too deep into it. She can’t turn around and change her whole life. And she can’t be friends with Tracy anymore, knowing that Mel won’t be her mom and it’ll be reminded to her constantly. So she cuts off Tracy completely, recklessly and immaturely. But after all, she’s 13, she isn’t mature.
p4. UNDERSTANDING TRACY FREELAND
“When you first meet Tracy, everything she is at the end of the film, is what she keeps bottled up inside in the beginning,” remarks Reed during press for the film. This one remark changes the perception of the film. It confirms that these reckless qualities have been built up over time, but aren’t the production of Evie, she may have just enabled it.
At the beginning of the film, Tracy is going through depression. Her familial issues don’t help. She’s easily volatile and locks herself in the restroom to be in pain. But she still has a sense of innocence to her. She still reads poetry to her mom and there’s a rawness to it. She has friendly banter with her brother and she writes good poems in her english class. She’s still an overachiever, and even though she is doing well, she’s still unhealthy. She’s envious of the popular girls and she’s envious that her life isn’t glamorous, and that she has to deal with her mother not making enough money. But after she meets Evie, it’s unclear whether she is doing better or not. And I tend to wonder whether she’s aware. She has some of the things she wanted, popularity and money that she steals. But her family life gets worse. She’s distanced from her mother and her brother is concerned too. But she has a best friend, the thing that, at the beginning, it was clear she needed. And while, on the outside, she’s happy, laughing and squealing and dancing everywhere, she’s slowing dying. Her mom is concerned whether she’s eaten and her english teacher doesn’t know what happened. That’s why, even though reckless and shocking, the intervention was so important and gave Tracy a well needed wakeup call.
To summarize, I think that Thirteen was a film quite ahead of its time. Though it’s gained a Tiktok following that oftentimes becomes unhealthy given the romanticization, it’s also a movie that’s open to so many interpretations and representations of caricatures we see in our lives everyday. The film isn’t afraid to show explicit content in the urge to push against the boundaries place on teens, and what happens when there’s really no limit of it. We see the gradient of people who seem all so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, an gritty and painful reminder that sometimes the teenage era is the most delicate.
