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Partners
Thirteen'Normal' teenage life, the kind most of us had, is never like you see in the movies. Hollywood kids are either mini-secret agents, one-dimensional whiny brats or coke-snorting monsters. The girls in Thirteen, Tracy (Wood) and Evie (Reed, who co-scripted), fall more into the latter category, but at least writer-director Catherine Hardwicke has tried to flesh out their hedonism. We might never have gone as far as these characters, but at one point or another all teens feel similar confusion and pain.
Tracy starts off as a model student, but her hormones kick off just as she enters junior high-school. She aches for the coolness that Evie has in spades. One makeover later and Tracy and Evie are shoplifting and doing drugs together, sharing clothes, homes and boys. They spiral out of control against a backdrop of media and peer pressure - they live in a world of adverts starring beautiful people, teen clothes shops selling hipsters and cropped tops and where music videos churn out a steady stream of gyrating women. It's no wonder contemporary kids go a little crazy. But the film takes care to point out that even hard-cases like Evie are just kids who are afraid of their moms.
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