Caffeinated Clint
Guilty Pleasures that we enjoyed – even though we don’t quite know why.
Movie Title : 13 Going on 30
Released 2004
Starring Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis
Directed By Gary Winick
What is it? : A well-meaning but very saccharine (it’s almost too much for a diabetic like myself at times) Jennifer Garner vehicle from a couple of years back. It’s a rom-com that has a very ‘80s’ feel to it. Is it the Belinda Carlisle track that opens the movie? The Rick Springfield mention? The fact that the movie is an immodest rip-off of the 1987 Penny Marshall classic ‘’Big’’, in which a 13 year old is transformed into a grown-up Tom Hanks overnight? Or merely the fact that it’s relying on the light and fluffy to get folks through? Whatever the case, it could be easily be mistaken as something straight out of the Reagan-era.
A total 180 from her role as agent Sidney Bristow on TV’s ‘’Alias’’, ‘’30’’ casts the pretty (but muscular?) ‘It’ girl as a young hotshot business editor, who a day before was your typical dorky 13 year old schoolgirl.
Jenna Rink is astonished that her dream to be older has come true – she has the job, she has the money, she has the body – but when she realises that it’s come with a price – losing her childhood friend to a gang of girly bitches, who, at one time, were her enemies – she sets out to make things right.
What’s wrong with it? I think that’s pretty clear. “30†is no more, no less than the female equivalent of ‘’Big’’. It’s as unoriginal as any of those body-switching/oldie-gets-young-again movies. I should know… I paid to see nearly every one of them at the cinema. From “Like Father Like Son†to “18 Again†and “Vice Versa†they all seemed to be cut straight from the same slab. And though this one comes many, many years after the rest – it still sings to the same, tired-old tune. There’s no surprises, no twist-you-don’t-see-coming and no singular original touch to speak of. It could’ve been terrific…. It could’ve danced to its own beat, so to speak…. But director Gary Winick seems content in merely making ‘another one of those movies’.
What’s right about it? Garner’s magnetic, bubbly performance almost saves the movie from dipping into merely ‘okay’ terrain. Shining in near every scene, Mrs Affleck is the draw card to the film, bringing welcomed goofiness to the part (watch her re-enact the dance routine of the late Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ at a party) and drowning the screen with the embodiment of someone many young women will easily relate to. Supporting performances – by the likes of Mark Ruffalo (though can I ask ‘Why’!?), Andy Serkis and the always-dependable Judy Greeer – are also divine.
The production team has also nailed the 80’s on the head – the hairstyles, the music (though they do use a lot of songs that came out at different times in the 80’s – they probably should’ve stuck to one particular year), the trends and so on.
It’s a very easy-film-to-watch-too – especially if you’ve grown up on such fluff, like I have.
Why is it so bad it’s good? : Did I mention Jennifer Garner does the ‘Thriller’ dance!?
– CLINT MORRIS
