Hardwicke's and Reed's mature teen drama, constructed from Reed's experience, is developed as an adolescent character analysis that ends up being highly distressing, poignantly gritty, extremely unpleasant and unbelievably intense. Thirteen admittedly looks exactly like your average teen/coming-of-age story to deal and send a message about drugs, theft, sex and peer pressure during adolescence, but surprisingly, it's not.
The story centres on the average 13-year-old girl who isn't too matured until she is lead to the "cool-girl" lifestyle involving lots of mature subject matter for the movie by her new friend who identifies as the hottest and coolest girl at her school. This is an adolescent story of teenage peer pressure with lots of explicit language, drug and alcohol use, sexual references and grown-up teenage content that floods most teen movies, either dramas or comedies.
However, viewers should definitely keep in mind the fact that the themes in Thirteen shift more towards the heavy drama side, consisting of extremely gritty topics that will even have a powerful impact on mature audiences and adults. The ending certainly marks as the most traumatic experience out of the film, because unlike so many other teen movies, there's absolutely no answers and while it doesn't exactly leave off on an irritating cliffhanger, the conflict is never properly resolved. Thirteen will leave you with an unbelievable amount of unanswered questions and thoughts.
Throughout this movie, you can clearly tell that there were no tripods used for the camera and most of it was just recorded by hand. Some will probably see this as a little nauseating, but it perfectly suits the movie's visual tone and somehow manages to increase the intensity of the subject matter, notably at the end. The teenage and adult actresses are also mind-blowing in this movie. Their performances are shockingly lifelike and only few casts can achieve this effect. There is no single cast member who wasn't outstanding in this movie, even in the little roles that come and go.
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