Directed by: Gary Winick
Written by: Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa
Starring: Jennifer Garner (Jenna Rink), Mark Ruffalo (Matt Flamhaff), Judy Greer (Lucy Wyman), Andy Serkis (Richard Kneeland), Kathy Baker (Bev Rink), Phil Reeves (Wayne Rink), Samuel Ball (Alex Carlson), Marcia DeBonis (Arlene), Christa B. Allen (Young Jenna), Sean Marquette (Young Matt), Kiersten Warren (Trish Sackett), Joe Grifasi (Mr. Flamhaff), Mary Pat Gleason (Mrs. Flamhaff), Susan Egan (Tracy Hansen), Lynn Collins (Wendy)
Rated PG-13 (some sexual content and brief drug references)
Films in which the main character suddenly wake up twenty-years older are hard to sell because they have to successfully suspend reality well enough that the audience believes the trick and the plot.
Penny Marshall’s hit film Big (1988) succeeded not really because we believed that a possessed or magical fortune-teller machine could turn an 11 year-old boy into a 30 year old man but because the script stayed within its bounds-- it never had Josh talking, reacting, or acting older than the ten year old that he was. There was a stated innocence and aloofness that never was compromised.
Tom Hanks' incredible performance simply allowed the audience to not only suspend reality, to believe a highly unbelievable story, but to literally fall in love with it.
Gary Winick’s film 13 Going on 30 attempts to do the same with a story about a 13 year-old girl named Jenna (played by Jennifer Garner) who makes a wish one night and wakes up in the morning being 30 years-old. Unlike Big, however, Winick's film doesn't successfully suspend reality. It simply just doesn't make sense. Consider these two points:
1. Magic wishing powder. 13 year-old Jenna is given magic powder on her birthday by her best friend Matt. The package explains that whatever she wishes for, it will come true. Now I don't go out to Wal-Mart to check to see if they carry wishing powder but I'm sure that any store carrying party paraphernalia has some. Couldn't the vehicle for time travel have been something a bit more unique?
2. Illogical time jump. When Jenna wakes up into her new 30 year-old body, she is no longer in the place where she fell asleep. Nor is she in her house. She wakes up in a high-rise apartment in New York City. She's wearing lingerie. And there is a guy taking a shower in her bathroom.
This jump in location is a hard sell, indeed. But its even a harder sell to have a 30 year-old Jenna suddenly taken over by her 13 year-old personality.
How is a 30 year-old body suddenly going to be taken over by her 13 year-old personality to the point that all memories since age 13 are wiped out? Nada. No recollection of ages 14 to 30.
It doesn't help the befuddlement when, in the end of the film, the 13 year-old Jenna goes back to her 13 year-old body.
The writers Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa lay out a story that seems to indicate that there is a dual reality, one in which there is an older version of Jenna existing in a parallel time period.
What I think G & Y were going for was a type of personal realization similar to the one Scrooge experiences in Dicken's A Christmas Carol, in which Scrooge travels through time to see how personal choices have set him on a course that leads to unhappiness and an inevitable loss of his soul if he continues on the path he is on. Goldsmith and Yuspa's script captures the essence of this theme but it doesn't logically come through for me because of silly time travel aspect of it.
What they should have done was mimic The Wizard of Oz. Dorothy was sent off to Oz after she was knocked unconscious during a tornado. Similarly, G & Y could have written it so that the doll house that Matt gave Jenna would have fallen squarely on her head as she threw her tantrum in the closet, knocked her unconscience, and sent her on her merry way to New York where she would see herself as a rich and successful magazine editor. And at the opportune time in the story, when Matt is supposed to tell her that he will marry his fiance instead of her, Jenna would be shaken back into reality by the 13 year-old Matt.
Regarding the acting: Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo were great. I enjoyed Garner's interpretation of teenage antics and mannerisms, especially when placed in uncomfortable circumstances.
Ruffalo is quite an amazing actor. I don't know if this makes any sense whatsoever but his presence in many of the scenes brought a level of humanity to them. Maybe it was because he was playing the role of a guy who was ostricized as a teenager because he was overweight. Whatever it was, Ruffalo seemed to have internalized the pain of his character so that whenever he was on screen with Jenna, he portrayed raw emotion, honesty, hurt, and longing. As the older Matt, he was a wound reopened and barely bandaged.
In closing, I was touched by the message of the film -- that love is something we have to continually work at or it fades.
