As Jessie on ABC's drama Once and Again, Evan Rachel Wood brilliantly portrayed a young teenager struggling to grow up while dealing with, a blended family, and her own attraction to another girl. In Catherine Hardwicke’s movie thirteen, Wood portrays another troubled adolescent: Tracy, a shy, intelligent thirteen-year-old growing up in a hectic but loving Los Angeles household comprised of her divorced mother Melanie (Holly Hunter), brother Mason (Brady Corbet), her mother’s recovering crack addict boyfriend Brady, and the family dog.

The story of thirteen is deceptively simple, a chronicle of a really bad seventh grade experience. Although Tracy is a good student and has close friends, she nevertheless longs to be part of the in crowd. After a bold makeover, she seeks out the approval of the most beautiful and popular girl in her class, Evie (Nikki Reed, also co-screenwriter). In a scene that is a cross between High Noon and Clueless, the two girls silently confront each other in an emptied school walkway and size up each other’s fashion accessories. Tracy is rewarded with Evie’s cell phone number; Evie proves to be unreliable, but Tracy persists.

After bonding over an afternoon of shopping, shoplifting and pick-pocketing, Tracy and Evie become fast friends. Tracy brings Evie into the inner sanctum of her family home. Tracy’s mother welcomes Evie like a lost daughter. Her brother Mason, knowing Evie from school, is more wary. Evie, in turn, promptly introduces Tracy to her world of drugs, alcohol, excessive makeup, horny boys, multiple body piercings and non-existent parental supervision.

Tracy’s mother Melanie, though a trusting woman, is not only in a twelve step program herself, but continues to date a man whose drug habit wreaks havoc on the family. Melanie's prime fault may be she’s too trusting: her friends use her, her son Mason is a dutiful but girl-chasing pothead, her ex-husband is a good man but financially unreliable.

All these contradictions and missteps add up and are absorbed by Tracy, and begin to manifest themselves through Tracy's behavior (we learn, for example, that Tracy “cuts” herself with nail scissors when she feels overwhelmed). When Evie comes along, their friendship serves as catalyst, allowing Tracy to fully connect with her inner badass.

When Tracy is in full self-destructive descent, her father makes an appearance, ostensibly to intervene, but in reality he’s just there out of obligation; he makes it clear that he has no time for Tracy. The scene is utter heartbreak and further clarifies Tracy’s underlying implosive anger.

Eventually the two girls fool around with each other on a dare. When Tracy is asked out by Javi, the boy she’s crushing on, Evie questions her kissing skills, “you don’t know how to kiss, do you?” Tracy’s response--“…yes I do! Noel and I practiced to Cruel Intentions like fifty times"--is not only funny but, for her generation, dead-on-accurate (like everything else in the movie). Evie remains critical until Tracy pushes her onto the floor, climbs on top of her and "proves" she can kiss, in one very long take.

Given their increasing delinquency, the makeout session seems not only inevitable, but somewhat perfunctory. Though it is depicted more as a collision of teenage bravado than desire, Evie seems more invested in the kiss than Tracy. After all it is easy to see why a nerdy girl isolated in her own anxieties like Tracy would want to be friends with the most popular girl in school.

Why the popular girl would be so potently drawn to Tracy and her family is more curious. Evie’s motivations are as blurry as the burn scar that cuts across the flesh her back. Sometimes she just wants to be loved; at others she just wants to destroy anything good. In fine displays of sadism, Evie gleefully watches as Tracy gets her tongue pierced; in another scene she herself pierces Tracy’s navel--just one example of how Thirteen wisely recognizes that the disarming, inexplicable nature of teen rebellion is best portrayed in the details.

The acting and direction are raw and astounding; it's no surprise that first-time director/writer Catherine Hardwicke won the “Dramatic Directing Award” at the Sundance film festival. Evan Rachel Wood and Holly Hunter were both deservedly nominated for Golden Globe, SAG (Screen Actors Guild) and Independent Spirit Awards for their performances, and the other actors are just as worthy.

When the movie thirteen opened theatrically last summer, a frequent criticism among reviewers was that the transformation of Tracy from good girl to bad seed was far too abrupt, but the swiftness of this transition is one of the movie’s more profound insights. Thirteen doesn’t offer answers or solutions, only an extraordinary, brilliant and disturbing glimpse into the difficulties of teenage life that stays with you long after you've watched it.