13 Going on 30: Just say eeuuw

13 Going on 30 will turn teenage girls into rebels with good cause

By Anthony Allison

Last year, filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke and her precocious, 13-year-old co-writer Nikki Reed gave audiences a frank, painfully real glimpse of what life is like for girls on the cusp of womanhood. In Thirteen, Evan Rachel Wood played Holly Hunter's dutiful daughter, who comes under the nefarious influence of popular classmate Reed, with the inevitable consequences--sex, drugs, self-mutilation and general teen rebellion without a cause.

It was a sobering wake-up call to parents who blithely ignore the peer pressure that adolescents face nowadays in the urban junior high jungle, where defining yourself by your sexuality and your drug use is more prevalent than blinkered adults would willingly admit.

All the more reason, then, to decry the naive, retro attitudes revealed by 13 Going on 30.

In Gary Winick's old-fashioned film, written by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa (What Women Want), Christa B. Allen plays Jenna Rink, a plain-Jane loner who desperately wants to be cool. On her 13th birthday she wishes, on a packet of "Wishing Dust" given her by boy-next-door Matt (Sean Marquette) that she was older. Hey, presto, before she can say "Freaky frickin' Friday," Jenna wakes in the body of her 30-year-old self (Jennifer Garner), glamorous managing editor of her favorite women's magazine, Poise, which is fast losing a tough circulation war.

In a predictable plot involving her supposed best friend (Judy Greer) and long-suffering editor-in-chief (Andy Serkis), Jenna, of course, meets the adult Matt (Mark Ruffalo), a handsome, soon-to-be-wed photographer, before learning the Cruel Truth about the bitch she has become, and getting her well-deserved comeuppance.

There's nothing inherently wrong with the film's face-value message: Careful what you wish for, because you might find that adulthood is awash with compromise, disappointment, abandoned ideals and broken dreams. But the insidious, anti-feminist moral--that a woman's place is firmly in the home--is spelled out for inattentive viewers when Jenna has a tearful reunion with her mom (Kathy Baker), a happy housewife who insists she has no regrets. It feels like a throwback to a Doris Day/Rock Hudson battle-of-the-sexes comedy, minus the knowing, ironic tone of Peyton Reed's recent spoof Down With Love.

In keeping with the demands of such lightweight, manipulative fluff, Garner (TV's "Alias") remains relentlessly chirpy and upbeat throughout--though even her fixed grin is hopelessly upstaged by the intrusive product placement (Diet Coke, FedEx). By the time Jenna leads a sophisticated bunch of Manhattan party animals onto the dance floor, with Michael Jackson's "Thriller" blaring in the background, you'll be ready to barf.

Winick (no relation to Gary Winnick, founder of notorious telecom giant Global Crossing), last directed 2002's Tadpole, an unexpectedly droll coming-of-age comedy in which teen Aaron Stanford developed a crush on stepmom Sigourney Weaver. It seems Gary had no scruples about selling out with this formulaic fare.

Like him, Ruffalo apparently felt his serious, indie-flick street cred, revealed in You Can Count on Me and cemented by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, was secure enough to withstand frittering his talent in a contrived, love-interest role (Matt just happens to materialize whenever the script requires a scene between him and Jenna).

Want your daughters to grow up to become good, productive members of the city's escort--er, "entertainment" industry? By all means take the little darlings to 13 Going on 30. If ever there was a movie likely to make them get pierced, tattooed and deflowered quick, it's this one. Adults may wishfully buy its warm fuzzy message. But smart, sassy 13-year-olds will see straight through the facade, to the flagrant propaganda beneath.