Only because my cousin-in-law Iggy and I started talking about movies and shows and Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hiddleston yesterday after seeing Thor: The Dark World, I remembered one of my all-time favorite chick flicks, 13 Going On 30.
I first saw this when I was around 25 and instantly decided Jennifer Garner is way too cute and hot at the same time. I mean, she was totally believable as a teen inside a grown-up’s body. This is also the first I have seen of Mark Ruffalo and his boyish charm in this film made me go see his movie with Reese Witherspoon (which I later regret because outside of Legally Blonde, I dislike her with a passion).
Except now when I see Mark Ruffalo, I expect him to turn into a big, green dude with a bad temper. Yikes. And while I’m on the subject, is it just me or that even after watching Eric Bana and Edward Norton take on the role, the Hulk really does resemble Ruffalo more?
Anyway, where was I?!
Oh yeah, 13 Going on 30, Jennifer Garner, chick flicks. Yeah. My other feel-good flick is Never Been Kissed (with Drew Barrymore and Michael Vartan). Gosh, if only my high school English teachers were as fine as Vartan, who knows I might have graduated with honors.
So again, back to my first topic.
I guess the appeal of this movie, especially now that I am thirty, is it sort of points out how when we’re younger we were in a hurry to grow up, that we think being more mature and older is so glamorous – careers, relationships, staying up all night partying and drinking and getting our own pay check. Yep the last one is a must, but then when we do finally grow up, we realize it’s not always as fabulous as our pubescent selves thought it would be. There are bills, responsibilities, expectations, bills, bills and yep, more bills. And then we look back to our carefree days of youth and think, crap, time flies!
In the movie, Jenna Rink was a typical thirteen-year-old who wanted to be in the cool clique. After a disastrous 13th birthday party where the cool kids made fun of her and ditched her, she got into a big fight with her loyal and fellow un-cool childhood friend, Matt. Yep, first few minutes into the film you just know they’ll end up together but you stay for the next hour or so because the characters are so endearing and oh my, familiar! That scene where Jenna stuffed her bra with tissue to look more womanly – spot on!
The disastrous yet fateful party.
Jenna freaks out about her apperance, especially her new rack!
Oh, that smile.
So Jenna hates her life and wished she was “thirty, flirty and thriving” and some of Matt’s magic wishing dust falls onto her and the next thing she knew, she wakes up in a strange but posh apartment in New York with a handsome naked guy. Jenna is thirty, has an amazing bod with boobs to match, is best friends with “Tom-Tom” Lucy (the leader of the childhood clique she so desperately want to be in) and is a bitchy yet successful editor for Poise Magazine. She has everything she wished she had; she was everything she wanted to be.
Except of course, as the movie moved on, she realized she got where she was by being conniving, deceitful and not at all like the Jenna her friend Mattie knew. She slept around with married men, is actually frenemies with Lucy, doesn’t talk to nor go home to her parents anymore and is secretly selling out Poise to the rival magazine, Sparkle so she can get a better post there. Plus, she finds out she stopped being friends with Matt (who looked awkward before but grew up to be that handsome dork with gorgeous hair, sigh.).
So, she ends up losing everything – her friends, the new project she worked so hard for and Matt, who was getting married. Jenna realizes that in her pursuit of what she thought would give her happiness and success, she forgot the person she was and left behind the people who matter.
Didn’t we all, at one time or another, asked ourselves the same question she posed to her mother when she went back to her childhood home: “If you could have one do-over in your life, what would it be?”
And her mom replied, “Nothing.” She wouldn’t change a single thing, she says, because if she didn’t make the mistakes she made, she wouldn’t know how to do things right.
And when you’re thirty, flirty and thriving, trust me, you didn’t get there without leaving a trail of errors, a broken heart or two, disappointments, hurts and regrets. I certainly did. But then you move on, ask for forgiveness and try not to do the same juvenile crap over and over again. Do-overs? Oh yes please, if only we could. But since we can’t, we just try to be better people than we were yesterday, hoping we make wiser decisions, praying we become the best versions of ourselves.
I think that’s the appeal of this movie. It feeds our innate desire for those if-I-could-turn back-time wishes. Jenna gets to go back and do things over again, starting with her and Matt.
My favorite part (and because I’m a total sniveling cry baby) was when Jenna went to Matt on his wedding day, carrying the dream doll house he gave her for her thirteenth birthday. She tells him she loves him and wants another chance, but Matt -though he feels attracted to her and is fond of her – tells her it’s too late.
My favorite scene in the movie.
Plus the soundtrack’s great. I’m an eighties baby but was too young to appreciate these songs then, but come on, don’t tell me you haven’t sung any of these during videoke nights? I certainly have! Madonna’s Crazy For You, Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Jessie’s Girl, Thriller and more.
Gah, let me watch this again.
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