THIRTEEN MOVIE REVIEW/INSANE YAP

this movie just fucking shot me in the soul oh my god. I put this on thinking "ohh yeah it's gonna be one of those 'be yourself' stories where the girl tries to fit in but realizes she's better than that!"..no. 

and the thing about it is that it's just so fucking accurate. the movie is called thirteen but you forget that number the further you go in. I got snapped back in at the end with Tracy's teacher saying she'd be repeating seventh grade. it hits you only when they say it. SEVENTH. 

she's plain in the beginning, sure. you get basically no screentime of her before making friends with Evie. you see glimpses, like how she still plays with her dog when Evie's around, or how she hesitates to steal. how she still lingers by the kitchen table every morning even though she's never going to eat anything. but she's just not present in those moments. 

she's not happy. life is slow. her house is grey and boring and the camera barely moves. no music. she's not seen at home and that means she's not loved in her eyes. Evie loves her and sees her. the second they step out music is everywhere, her vision is swarming anyplace it can get to, the world is blurry just from its sheer size. its a distraction but a really good one. 

Tracy's life is her favorite drug. every step she can take to get badder feels better. the more shocking, the more aggressive. she swears in front of her mother for the first time and doesn't walk away upset. but by the end she's just breaking down and saying whatever she thinks will have an effect. the same way she "practiced" with Evie. competitive. and everything in her life is an imitation. she's kissing her boyfriend and watching Evie the whole time, doing what she does. "practicing like Cruel Intentions". smiling for the right people. she's nobody. but it gets her what feels like love, and that's all she ever needed.

a lot of people say that bullies only do what they do because they have their own problems. and they definitely do. but a lot of the time I've noticed that the problem is also dramatized. kids struggle. don't know who they are. they see their friends looking like they know what they're doing, they see it as a cure and they obsess over whatever it takes to get there. they start crying with no tears, cursing with no anger. they make the things that upset them insignificant and the things that frustrate them larger than life. "this family will never be normal" "why couldn't I have had a better life" "why couldn't I have never been born" etc etc. they say it any chance they get except for when it counts. 

 the second her lifestyle starts to cause problems Tracy is doing everything to hide from the spotlight she originally killed her old self for. she puts her head down in front of her old friends, runs from every conversation with her mom, and keeps her head in her old sketchbook. she's mentally gone, and you can see it in the way she speaks and moves. she looks like her shirt is itchy. you can see the little kid in her come out when Evie's in the dressing room in the store at night, when the room is spinning and she's stomping like a toddler to get a stranger off her arm. or when her brother says she's gonna get kicked out and she starts screaming at him. 

but it shows the most when she's crying in her mom's arms like she's being exorcized. she said herself she can't remember how to spell photographer. she can't remember how to stay in one place at one time either. she only knows how to run away. her being held down is literally the best possible thing they could've written in. she's yelling "get off me", "you don't want me, you don't want me" and every single thing she held back in her own bathroom drawer is spilling out of her mouth. this moment counts but she doesn't want to let it. the fear surrounding her within her family is a rush within itself, keeping her from ever being accountable. Tracy being a problem feels like the only thing that can keep her family somewhat together. 

and when she's with Evie they're conjoined at the hip. hugging, holding hands like sisters. holding onto each other because their secrets are their own world, secret language, something no one else could ever understand. Evie is a little bit different. she hides it better. she smiles and compliments everything Tracy's mom does. she's polite, she says I love you. considering everything she went through it makes sense that she would want to kiss up a little more. be two faced. she had to be to survive. and that rubs off on Tracy like a plague, telling her that she deserves to let her anger out. that she needs to and that everyone who gets offended just doesn't get it. nobody gets it like Evie. 

but the second she leaves Tracy doesn't even look for her. she's trying to run back to her bathroom, not out the door. she's trying to get silence for once, for the world to stop spinning, for her to stop getting hit and spun around and fucked up by everything and everyone around her. she wants to be in control of her own suffering in every possible way. when her mom was enabling it, it was "mom, I'm not your fucking slave." every time she was actually hurt or bleeding it was "nothing" or "fine". perfect exaggeration every time like she was born to do it. 

you barely see the school because it's not about school. all it is is an outlet. they meet there and separate there. time passes by and they're drunk and high and they're not thirteen for a second. nobody could give a damn what age they were until they're sitting in a room saying it. 

and this whole movie just hit me so hard because I see myself in it. everywhere. hiding from everything I could. having that secret drawer and the friends I never mentioned and the secrets that got me out of bed at night but not as far as to anyone else's. 

I was never a big "problem". kind of the opposite. I shut up. I would be a little closer to Tracy's friends at the beginning of the movie, suddenly sitting alone. or sitting right next to her but not getting a word out. like they were on a different planet. hearing the words but not seeing the person's eyes. not seeing who they were anymore and wishing you could strangle it back out of them. you keep trusting in the idea that they'll get fixed up eventually no matter how deep it goes. 

or being at the cool friend's house where they scream at their parents. but by the end of the sleepover they're whispering and crying to you about everything they've hid as long as they've lived in this disgusting foreign body they're in. just since a year ago. and you think about all the times when you were little and got jealous of their toys or wished you had their mom instead of yours. and you don't know what to say so you hug but they're not as warm as they used to be. 

and soon enough you're in the exact same position with someone holding you. the world is so loud and dangerous sometimes and a lot of kids don't get a hand to hold during it. or it's not one that they trust. Tracy could never tell her mom about her dad outright until she met Evie. 

it builds up. so you kill the tension in different ways but never what creates it. it weakens you. 

you get bruised and shrink down to nothing but act like you're grown the whole time. nothing else can protect you. 

so many movies tell you that teens will be teens and they'll figure it out eventually but sometimes they don't. sometimes it goes so deep that it becomes everything they are. it's a routine, whatever form of self destruction it is. it's a pity party for yourself that you've forgotten how to stop. some get help. some don't. 

but so often parents, teachers, adults, etc treat it as if it's the kid's problem. they're a delinquent. mentally ill. but it never takes into account how easy it is for them to fall in from the smallest impact. how some are more susceptible. how some of them are too scared of getting any help for it. 

we don't blame babies for crying but we blame teenagers for SH. it shouldn't be any different. 

they're still kids and everything around them is falling to pieces as they watch. they're being disillusioned to everything and everyone they used to love to a certain extent, and when there's no solid guide to help them through or hear them out (like Tracy's mom being too busy to talk about her poem at the beginning of the movie)... it presents itself in other ways. 

this movie is great and I probably could've said way more but it's getting very late💔I recommend it but please be mindful of triggers there are A LOT. 

thanks for reading ur a trooper

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