Baddie two-shoes

Drug-taking, solvent abuse, fellatio, shoplifting, self-cutting and a DIY navel piercing without anaesthetic are just some of the delights that await the viewer of Catherine Hardwicke's alarming new movie. With a pair of 13-year-old girls from Los Angeles as its protagonists, this might be considered a wake-up call for blinkered parents.

Co-written by Nikki Reed (who also stars) and based on her own experiences as a nice young girl who was lured into bad habits by her temporary best friend, Hardwicke's movie is conveyed at first with the fashionable-speed and ragged power of an MTV video. With little in the way of plot, the tale simply charts the rise and fall of bright A-student Tracey Freeland (Evan Rachel Wood), who lives with her divorced ex-alcoholic mother, Mel (Holly Hunter), and her brother.

When peer pressure at school forces her out of the goodie two-shoes image and into a walk on life's wilder side, she hooks up with the school bad girl, Evie (Nikki Reed), who introduces her to the life of stuff.

The film opens with the two girls hitting each other in the face as they inhale solvents ("Hit me. Hard. I can't feel a thing") until Tracey is temporarily knocked unconscious. The story then flashes back to their first encounter and sketches in background details of their respective families.

Evie's home life is wilfully enigmatic; she lives with someone called Brooke (Deborah Kara Unger) who may or may not be her mother but to whom she refers as her "cousin". Brooke is a fading actress clinging to the remnants of a career and suffering under the scalpel of cosmetic surgery to stave off the ravages of time.

When Evie moves in with her friend and disrupts her chaotic but essentially loving household, the stage is set for a major confrontation between mother and daughter as Mel finally discovers the extent of Tracey's daughter's fall from grace.

Hardwicke's direction begins in busy fashion and calms down as the tale progresses in direct counterpoint to the events depicted. Tracey's increasing alienation from her mother is suggested by a gradual bleaching out of colour on the screen; the final sequence involving an extraordinary catharsis between mother and daughter is almost black and white.

It is here that the performances - which have been superb throughout - pay emotional dividends. The sight of Hunter kissing her daughter's self-inflicted scars as if trying to kiss away the psychological pain that raised them will haunt me for some time.

Thirteen
Cert: cert18