Thirteen: Critic Reviews

With an authenticity that is tender and merciless, the movie shows you what it looks like when youth rebellion becomes a form of fascism.

The panic in the eyes of Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood), the barely teenage protagonist of Thirteen, will stay with you for a very long time.

It's tough to recall the last such drama that packed as much emotional clout.

The creation of teen-girl culture seems almost pitch-perfect.

It feels like real life unfolding before your eyes.

A worst-case scenario that preys on parental fears of the monster movie lurking within every teenage rebellion, and it's fed by memories of what we got away with when we were young.

Less a damozel- in-distress fetish flick than a bird-flipping plunge into coded girl-cult communication.

One of the most honest and harrowing depictions of female adolescence ever put to film.

Thirteen, a disturbing look at rebellious teens, is galvanized by emotional extremes and wrenching performances. But this gritty indie film also presumes a profundity that its edgy shocks and drama-queen histrionics don't deliver.

Burns with emotional truth.

[A] jarring and beautiful movie.

Sets a technical problem that seems insoluble, and meets it brilliantly, finding convincing performances from its teenage stars. showing a parent who is clueless but not uncaring, and a world outside that bedroom window that has big bad wolves.

The film moves you, angers you and tears apart your preconceptions.

A potent picture.

The movie is a descendant of 1950s juvenile- delinquent melodramas, but it has a chilling emotional authenticity.

Although it borders on exploitation in several places, Thirteen packs an emotional wallop.

It's a pretentious piece of Valley Girl vileness masquerading as social commentary.

Everyone in it needs a blood transfusion, and before it's over, so will you.

Hunter and Reed are excellent, but it's the scarily talented 15-year-old Wood whose scorching, star-making performance drives Thirteen.

It's a Kids for a new generation of the too-young -to-be-this -messed up.

Only people who have forgotten their own adolescence, or who are terrified of relinquishing it, could find it startling to discover that teenagers do things to shock their parents.

Warning: This movie may have uncomfortable similarities to events in your life.