Thirteen; A Movie To Learn From
24 05 2009The time you become a teenager is the time you’re life turns completely different, you go through experiences and obstacles, but it could be a troubled journey. No matter what, it will always go through the normal and expected problems, for example, gossip, rumors, peer pressure in doing things, and change into a completely different person, for either the good or worse.
Something that really opened my eyes about this, is a movie called Thirteen, written by Catherine Hardwicke and Nikki Reed, who was a main character in the movie. The movie revolves around a 13 year old, straight-A student, named Tracy Freeland, who gets teased a lot in her school by the popular kids. So just to fit in, she befriends with Evie, the most popular girl in the 7th grade. She is then invited to shopping with Evie, but what she didn’t know is that shopping to Evie, was shop-lifting. Tracy takes the chance, and steals a lady’s pocket book, and goes shopping. As they become closer, Evie leads Tracy to the life that includes drugs, smoking, sex and alcohol, so she’s leading her to danger. Tracy starts lying to her mom, her mom’s boyfriend and her brother, who catches her later in the movie, thinking she was another girl and was just trying to hit on her.
When Evie moves in Tracy’s house, they both go in a downward spiral, experimenting with the drugs, with smoking, with alcohol, with piercings and crimes, like shoplifting. At the same time, no one is aware of that Tracy actually cuts herself, and puts her self in harms way, just to relieve the stress. After a whole lot of trouble, Tracy gets a wake up call, and her mom finds out the truth about everything, and gets heart broken.
The movie, in my opinion, is a very educational movie, even though it might be a little inappropriate, it explains real situations that could happen in many teenagers’ life, and could be happening to someone as you read this. It’s all peer pressure and the environment you live in, you get affected and you just change. It was really interesting seeing the change that the girl goes through, from a “goody goody” to such a different, troubled teenager, because of one girl. It showed me how you have to have a balanced life in those years, and that life can really get out of control if you don’t teach yourself right from wrong. Anything could happen when you’re a teenager, you might think you know how to control yourself, but when you start doing something that you really enjoy, you’ll see how hard it is to stop or to control yourself, like smoking or drinking. So I think people my age should think before they act, and think what could happen to them, because everything isn’t planned out in life, it’s all a journey with unexpected events.
