From the Director of ‘Twilight,’ This Is One of the Most Difficult to Watch Teen Films Ever — and It’s Now on Netflix

Say what you want about Twilight, but compared to its four sequels, the original 2008 film has a distinctive style and aesthetic thanks to director Catherine Hardwicke. Though they had vastly different budgets and cultural legacies, Twilight is cinematographically similar to Hardwicke’s directorial debut Thirteen, which just hit Netflix on August 1st. A psychological teen drama, Thirteen stars Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed (who also co-wrote the script with Hardwicke) as Tracy and Evie, two thirteen-year-old girls who develop a co-dependent friendship and spend their afternoons experimenting with sex, drugs, and petty crime to cope with their turbulent home lives.

Released over 20 years ago, Thirteen is still as relevant as ever, and was groundbreakingly candid in its depiction of teenage girlhood, though its disturbing content provoked some outraged reactions from viewers upon its release. Led by Wood and Reed and anchored by an Oscar-nominated performance from the great Holly Hunter, Thirteen is arguably one of the darkest teen movies ever made, and Hardwicke’s vision laid the groundwork not only for her work on the first Twilight film, but for other female-led coming-of-age dramas in the decades since its release.

‘Thirteen’ Was Semi-autobiographical and Co-Written by 14-Year-Old Nikki Reed

Despite a long career in Hollywood, Catherine Hardwicke may still be best known as the director of Twilight, which, love it or hate it, has become iconic in its own right. Hardwicke only directed the first movie in the franchise, but her unique vision easily puts it a tier above the rest of the films in the series. Hardwicke’s use of handheld, shaky cam and the blueish-green filter that defines the aesthetic of the first Twilight film can also be found in her low-budget debut, Thirteen. Both are coming-of-age stories about two regular teenage girls whose sudden rebellious behavior is prompted by the arrival of two enigmatic new figures in their lives, though one is a sparkly 104-year-old vampire, while the other is another teenage girl. Thirteen is special in that it draws directly from a teenage girl’s perspective – co-writer and star Nikki Reed, with whom Hardwicke had a close bond after having previously been in a long-term relationship with Reed’s father. They wrote the screenplay together in just six days, and the film’s protagonist, Tracy, played by Evan Rachel Wood, was based on Reed.

Thirteen follows Tracy Freeland, a seventh grader in Southern California, who becomes entranced by Evie Zamora, the most popular and fashionable girl at school. When Evie’s friends mock Tracy’s “Cabbage Patch clothes,” Tracy decides she needs a new wardrobe to get Evie’s attention and impress her. This actually works, and after inviting Tracy to shop with her and her friend on Melrose Avenue, Evie begins to reel Tracy into her world of sex, drugs, and teenage rebellion, exacerbating the rift between Tracy and her mom, Mel (Holly Hunter), a recovering alcoholic. We watch as Tracy goes from sweet and sensitive to inconsiderate and emotionally volatile due to a combination of factors, while Mel tries to figure out how to address the drastic change in Tracy’s behavior without inadvertently pushing her daughter further away.

‘Thirteen’ Is an Unflinching Look at Teenage Girlhood and Mother-Daughter Relationships

As Y2K aesthetics have made a resurgence on TikTok, the skimpy, age-inappropriate clothes worn by Tracy and Evie are often used as outfit inspo and undoubtedly cement Thirteen as a snapshot of the early aughts, and much of the film’s legacy is derived from its distinct aesthetic. Dark, raw, and at times disturbing and hard to watch, Thirteen is a landmark in teen cinema, especially in its depiction of the complex friendships between teenage girls and complicated mother-daughter relationships. Elliot Davis’ mostly hand-held cinematography gives Thirteen a documentary-style quality that makes the film feel so immersive and real, pulling you into Tracy’s turbulent life. As Tracy and Evie’s relationship evolves, so does the color scheme, taking on that blue-green tint Hardwicke replicates in Twilight to reflect Tracy’s emotional state as her life continues to spiral out of control. Thirteen is messy, flawed, and entirely unique, and Hardwicke’s direction is perfectly suited to the subject matter, allowing teenage girls to see themselves represented on screen in a way they never had before.

There’s so much to glean from Thirteen beyond its aesthetic qualities, and the performances from Wood, Reed (in her film debut), and Hunter are what make the film so haunting. Wood deservedly earned herself a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama for her role, perfectly capturing Tracy’s evolution as a teenage girl who decides it’s time to stop playing with Barbies and start aspiring towards a hypersexualized beauty standard. Reed is captivating and exudes cool as Evie, but peeling back the layers of her character reveals her reality as a traumatized teenage girl searching for connection, specifically a motherly figure. And Hunter is perfectly cast as Mel, the “cool mom” who’s incapable of setting boundaries and desperate to find a way to get her daughter back to the person she was before she met Evie.

Thirteen may not seem like that shocking of a film compared to the kind of teen-centered media that has become popular in the two decades since its release (Thirteen walked so Euphoria could run). Nevertheless, viewers should proceed with caution, as it’s one of the darkest in the genre, but both Twilight lovers and fans of coming-of-age dramas will be able to appreciate Hardwicke’s groundbreaking debut.

Thirteen is available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.