13 Going On 30 Review
by Homer Yen (homer_yen AT yahoo DOT com)April 28th, 2004
"13 Going on 30" - Doesn't Quite Add Up by Homer Yen
(c) 2004
All of us welcome a cheery new face to the world of cinema. And a radiant disposition such as Jennifer Garner's will never go unappreciated. She oozes such breeziness that even the dourest of people would find themselves cracking a grin just because of the happy aura that emanates from her. It is the kind of embracing warmth that define cinematic sweethearts like Meg Ryan and Reese Witherspoon. And now we can add Jennifer Garner to that list.
Now, she just needs to find the right kind of material to bring out the charm that she potentially can bring to a romantic comedy. It's evident that she has what it takes. In all of her scenes, her mere presence seems to provide a little bit more of a buzz. For example, even her actions to save a dying party by initiating a line dance to Michael Jackson's always-playable-but-seldom-heard Thriller is probably funnier than it should be.
What the film lacks, however, is cohesiveness. The premise of the film borrows heavily from "Big," the body-switch film against which all others body-switch film are compared. We first meet our heroine, Jenna (Jennifer Garner), who is 13 and feeling awkward. Shunned by the coolest students and only appreciated by the equally awkward classmate Matt, she wishes that those clumsy adolescent years were behind her and that her life resembled that of Jennifer Garner.
Quicker than you can say "thirty and flirty," she wakes up a new woman. But the film seems to quickly abandon its premise of a 13-year old in a 30-old body. As the new Jenna acclimates herself into the world of adulthood, the film is not so much about a kid wearing adult shoes. It's about Jenna's power struggle at a large magazine where she is an editor and also her attempts to renew her friendship with Matt (Mark Ruffalo), who is now less awkward and even a handsome city-boy. 17 years of her life have inexplicably whisked by, and now, as the older Jenna, she is trying to reconstruct her history.
The now-older Jenna realizes that she was something of a bee-otch, which allowed her to achieve the status that she enjoys now. The challenge is that, going forward, no 13-year old person can do the things that this high-powered woman is required to do to keep the magazine afloat. Meanwhile, it's somewhat discomforting to see a 13-year old make herself so available to the now-30ish Mark. The cohesiveness seems disjointed. The film would've made more sense if they eliminated the entire 13-going-on-30 idea and just focused on Jenna realizing her Ebenezer Scrooge ways and reforming before its too late.
As a comedy, it does provide its moments of levity. But the types of laughs arise out of embarrassing acts as well as cute ones. Watching Jenna's hockey player boyfriend launch into an impromptu striptease is the embarrassing kind of funny. 30 year-old Jenna, who thinks like a 13-year old, trying to pick up a young man by using the pick-up line, "can I borrow your ketchup?" is the cute sort of funny. While "13 Going on 30" doesn't feel completely recycled, it doesn't feel like it's broken new ground either. Jennifer Garner is winning, but as for the rest of the film, you get just about what you expect.
Grade: C+
S: 1 out of 3
L: 0 out of 3
V: 0 out of 3
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