Movies possess the incredible ability to communicate reality. Jen-Luc Godard says that "a film is the world in an hour and a half." The recent 99-minute film Thirteen serves as a loud mouthpiece for the young, and an effective example of how pop culture can open our eyes and ears to the troubling reality of life in today's world for the emerging generations. If this is indeed their world and we haven't been listening, we'd better start paying attention. The reality Thirteen presents is anything but pretty, but it's true. A film about 13-year-olds written by 13-year-old Nikki Reed with help from writer/director Catherine Hardwicke, Thirteen takes viewers on a roller coaster ride through the world of today's adolescents as it autobiographically chronicles the desperate confusion of teenagers and their search for significance, purpose and belonging. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Reed said her own personal coming-of-age struggles and confusion were rooted in the fact that, "I felt like I wasn't understood and like no one was listening to me." The film is anything but entertaining. To conclude its purpose is to entertain would be to grossly miss its point. Like Mel Gibson's critically acclaimed The Passion of the Christ, Thirteen documents an ugly reality that warrants discovery. Reed's film cries out to adults, begging them to listen and understand. Never does the film attempt to justify or excuse the negative and troubling choices teens make in their search for ultimate purpose. Instead, it serves as a cry that informs. Thirteen chronicles the struggles of Tracy Frieland as she enters adolescence and morphs from a cute and perky straight-A student, into a confused and rebellious teenager looking for her place to belong. At the outset of the film, Tracy turns her back on her life-long neighborhood girlfriends in favor of a connection with the charismatic yet painfully broken Evie Zamora (played by
