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| 13
Going on 30
Directed By: Gary
Winick Plot
Summary - Review 1 - Review
2 - CURRENT REVIEWS
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| Jenna Rink is a typical preteen girl who wants more than anything to grow up. On her 13th birthday, Jenna's only wish is to get older and fast. When she wakes up the next morning, she's 30 years old, a sucessful magazine editor with a live-in boyfriend! Jenna tracks down Matt(her best friend when she was younger) to try and figure out what has happened. Nostalgia and dreams are powerful things, and those who fall in love with “13 Going On 30” cannot be blamed. As a teenager, I always dreamt of owning a car, having a house, and going to a job. Now, as an adult, I’m nostalgic for the days when I got to ride a bike, live for free and sleep until noon during the summer. In many ways this movie is a retort to one of my favorite quotes, “what a pity that youth is wasted on the young,” as a child gets the chance to jump forward in time, experience life as an adult and then return to appreciate her youth. I think if we all had a similar experience, we would have realized what we had while we still had it. Jenna (Christa B. Allen) is a thirteen year-old who wants to be one of the cool kids but isn’t, wants popular guys to like her but they won’t, and longs to be one of the glamorous thirty year-olds that she sees in the magazines. One doubts Jenna has given serious thought to the eating disorders, plastic surgery and business deals which would accompany that lifestyle. Of course, through a bit of magic, Jenna wakes up one day and she’s thirty, now played by rising star Jennifer Garner who, in my opinion, is a likely candidate for Julia Roberts’ successor. Garner, who is an editor for – how perfect – a teen magazine, has the charisma, innocence, and subdued sexuality that made Roberts a star. As soon as her agent finds her better material, she’ll become a major movie force. As the young Jenna learns more about the old Jenna, she becomes disgusted with what she hears. Apparently, she sold out on being original long ago in order to be popular, and in the process has turned her back on her nerdy young friend Matt and has stepped on people’s backs in her scramble to the top. When she goes to find Matt (Mark Ruffalo), she finds a hunk of a man who looks nothing like the nerd of her youth. (In a humorous twist, the hot guy from high school is now a balding cab driver) They start to rekindle a friendship, end up falling in love, only for Jenna to realize that her cynical lifestyle and Matt’s sweet finance will prevent them from being together. Now, the movie is foremost a comedy, and many moments are quite funny. Jenna leading a group of stuffy magazine executives to dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is my personal favorite, not because it is a synchronized dance routine that comes out of nowhere, but because she still has the youthful idealism of someone who wants to be the center attention. So many of us grow up and want to blend in that it’s refreshing to see the flip side of that coin. What director Gary Winick (“Tadpole”) underestimates is the need for real characters even in a silly little comedy. Jenna is played as well as can be expected by Garner, despite the fact that she has little to work with. Jenna is a one-note character; a thirty-something who is funny because she acts with the exuberance of a thirteen year-old, getting unreasonably excited about shoes, purses, makeup, cell phones, jobs, kisses and her own breasts. The real savior of the film is not the always-giddy-and-unbelievable Garner, but rather Wisconsin-native Ruffalo, as Matt. Sure, in many scenes he must be the gawker to Jenna’s humor, but he brings a balance to his part of regret, euphoria, cynicism and hope that makes him more real and, as a result, more entertaining. But you didn’t read this review for analysis. While I would recommend other nostalgia pieces such as “Almost Famous,” or “Big” (the blatant inspiration for this film), I know people want to go the theater and have a little fun. Well, for the young dreamers and the old softies, this will work just fine.   Check out Reviews, Commentary, and More at Zertinet.com |
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