13 Going on 30
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| 13 Going on 30 | |
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| Directed by | Gary Winick |
| Produced by | Roland Emmerich |
| Written by | Josh Goldsmith Cathy Yuspa |
| Starring | Jennifer Garner Judy Greer Mark Ruffalo Kathy Baker |
| Distributed by | Sony |
| Release date(s) | April 23, 2004 |
| Running time | 97 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $37,000,000 |
| IMDb profile | |
13 Going On 30 (also known as Suddenly 30 in Australia and 13 Love 30 In Japan) is a 2004 comedy movie starring Jennifer Garner. It has a similar premise to the 1988 film Big.
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[edit] Plot
Jenna Rink (played as a girl by Christa B. Allen then as an adult by Garner) is a stubborn and egocentric girl who is difficult to be friends with. On her 13th birthday in 1987, Jenna wishes to be a 30-year-old adult because she is ignored by the cool girls in school and mostly unnoticed by the cute boy she likes; in particular, Lucy (AKA "Tom-Tom", played by Alexandra Kyle), the leader of the school's snobby clique, the "Six Chicks", takes advantage of Jenna's smarts and desire to fit in by manipulating her into doing her homework for her, as well as stringing her along into thinking that Lucy is her friend and would accept her into the Six Chicks, only to dash Jenna's hopes as a cruel joke to keep her near the bottom of their school's social order. To make it up to her, her best friend Matt Flamhaff (played as a boy by Sean Marquette) gives her a doll dream house he had built for her and a packet of "magic wishing sparkles" to make her wish upon.
When she awakes the next morning, her wish has come true; she finds herself seventeen years in the future, gorgeous and successful with a great job in Manhattan as an editor for a magazine called Poise, a fabulous Fifth Avenue apartment, and a handsome celebrity boyfriend, but no idea how she achieved it all. Jenna is also working at the magazine with Lucy (Judy Greer), who is now her best friend.
Jenna soon discovers that Matt (Mark Ruffalo) is engaged to be married, and that they are no longer in contact, having to deal with adult problems instead of the simpler problems of kids. This is only complicated by the fact that Jenna has become a shadow of her former self - generally despised by all she comes into contact with, it was also suspected she was giving ideas from her work to a rival magazine, Sparkle. Although she does not realize it, she leads the magazine's soirée event into a smash hit by dancing to the Michael Jackson song "Thriller". She becomes friends with Matt again and they kiss, although Matt is already engaged. Matt seems dazed and realizes he really loves Jenna but he cannot change the past. After she later overhears Lucy badmouthing her to a co-worker behind her back at work, Jenna realizes that what she wanted really was not that good; she takes a break and heads back to her hometown to reunite with her parents and reminisce by looking through old school yearbooks and other items from her school days, which ends up inspiring her on her return to Manhattan.
After arranging a magazine photo shoot with Matt hired on as the photographer, then making a successful presentation for a planned revamp for Poise, Jenna prepares for the revamp when she gets bad news from the magazine's publisher: Poise is shutting down operations because all of the work she put into the magazine's relaunch ended up in the pages of Sparkle. Jenna quickly finds out that she herself was the one responsible for sabotaging Poise from within by sending their material to Sparkle for months; Lucy has now conned Matt into signing over the rights to the photos from the relaunch shoot to her, before defecting to Sparkle to become its new chief editor, once again profiting off of Jenna's hard work (as was the case when they were in school) and leaving her and Poise in the dust.
A distraught Jenna heads to the house where Matt's wedding is set to take place and she tries to convince Matt to call off the wedding, but Matt refuses, although he does tell her he loves her and gives her back the doll house he had first made for her. Jenna leaves in tears, then wishes herself back to 1987 (thanks to leftover wishing sparkles from the roof of the doll house), where she kisses Matt, then confronts the snobby Lucy, tears up the homework paper she had done for her and tells her off before she and Matt leave. Back in the present seconds later, the final scene has the adult Jenna and Matt emerging from the house as a happily-newlywed couple.
[edit] Box office
The movie opened on April 23, 2004 with an initial box office take of $22 million USD in its first weekend. It went on to face considerable competition from hit teen comedy Mean Girls and subsequently ended with nearly $60 million at the domestic box office. In the end the marketing of the somewhat grown up nostalgiafest as a teen comedy was blamed. The same picture became one of the five biggest DVD rentals of the year, with over $57 million in rentals alone according to the Internet Movie Database. It also sold well in that format.
[edit] Reception
The picture was seen by many as a big step into its lead actress' career as a bona fide movie star; critics raved at their surprise that Miss Garner had comic capability - and audiences talked of her performance above anything else. Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman named it the 9th best movie of the year in the magazine's year-end special issue.
Garner was nominated for multiple awards in her role as Jenna Rink, and won over many critics with her performance. Garner filmed the picture while on break from filming her TV series Alias.
Overseas, the movie impressed analysts by surpassing Mean Girls in many territories, and being critically acclaimed, while helping Garner build a bigger media profile as an international draw. The picture grossed just shy of $100m worldwide at $96.5m, going on to become one of the year's biggest DVD rentals and sellers.
Renée Zellweger was originally considered for the part played by Garner. Actors Mark Ruffalo, Christa B. Allen, Renee Olstead, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis, and Kathy Baker also appear in the film.
