Cast: Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis
Directed By: Gary Winick

Just A Kid At Heart

By Michelle Tan • UrbanWire
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“Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up”, says American indie-rock band The Ataris in their song “In This Diary”, a line most adults would agree with. With work to do, bills to pay, and a household to worry about, it’s no wonder many adults would give anything to be a carefree teenager again.

Jennifer Garner is a material girl in 13 Going On 30.

However, it’s the total opposite for preteen Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen). The young protagonist of 13 Going On 30 wants to grow up, and fast!

Her discontentment with her mundane life and lack of puberty spurts lead her to throw a birthday party for her 13th birthday. She invites her best friend and next-door neighbour, Matt Flamhaff (Sean Marquette), as well as the ‘cool crowd’ from school i.e. fair-weather acquaintances. But when the party doesn’t go as planned, a distraught and lonely Jenna wishes that she were 30, her ideal age.

With the assistance of some ‘wishing dust’ given to her by Matt, 13-year-old Jenna is transported 17 years into the future (a la Back To The Future, minus the car). Although at first terrified when she awakens, her initial shock turns into joy when she realises that her 30-year-old self (Jennifer Garner) has everything that she could possibly want: a high-profile magazine editor job, a swanky 5th Avenue home with lots of nice clothes, and a good looking (but sadly, not very smart) hockey player boyfriend, Alex Carlson (Samuel Ball).

Unfortunately, Jenna’s happiness is short-lived when she discovers that her future self is estranged from her parents and her best friend Matt, whose adult self is played by Mark Ruffalo. She’s also considered to be a driven career woman - the bitch that no one likes. Suddenly, being 30 isn’t all Jenna expected it to be.

If the premise of 13 Going On 30 seems strangely familiar, it’s because the show is the female version of Tom Hanks’s 1988 flick Big. As Willie Waffle of WaffleMovies.com says, "Yes, 13 Going on 30 is a rip-off of Tom Hanks's Big, but it has its own merits and charm (that's what the lawyers will be arguing when they get sued)."

Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo in 13 Going On 30

Big was about 13-year-old Josh Baskin, who wished he were older so that he’d be able to go on adult carnival rides and date the 16-year-old girl of his dreams. Frustrated with being treated like a kid, Josh made a wish at a strange fortune telling machine. Sound familiar yet?

And how about this: In Big, after starting at an entry-level data-collection job, Josh amazingly lands a job as a toy executive consultant, where his job is to give ideas about what toys kids would like. His naïve comments are taken as genius. Similarly, in 13 Going On 30, Jenna has to pretend to be the poised 30-year old career woman she’s supposed to be, making important editorial decisions naively which are taken to be fabulous ideas.

Although there are a lot of similarities, the show does hold its own with a plot that is more intricate than that of Big. While Big was about Josh’s adventure as an adult, 13 Going On 30 is more about Jenna realising what she’s become, and how she got there. By going through the challenges of adulthood, and trying to make amends for all the unpleasant things she’s done, Jenna discovers inner strength, becoming happier with herself, an important message that viewers should take away with them.

Although it was initially a little unsettling to see tough chick Jennifer Garner act cutesy instead of kicking butt the way she does in spy drama Alias and action movie Daredevil, her innocent and endearing performance eventually grew on me, although there were a few eye-rolling moments.

Speaking of those moments, the scene with the mass dance led by Jenna was really cringe-worthy in my book. So maybe they were trying to show their appreciation for Michael Jackson’s ”Thriller”, one of the best songs of all time, but didn’t anyone tell them that the dance steps only worked for the music video? It seemed incredible that the cast could go through the repetitive dance steps with a smile still plastered on their faces. Hello, this isn’t Bollywood.

Thankfully, the rest of the cast also pulls off respectable performances. Judy Greer, in particular, stands out as 30-year-old Jenna’s best friend, Lucy. The Joely Richardson look-alike plays the saccharine sweet backstabber to biting perfection. Another good performance is delivered by Andy Serkis (voice of Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy), who is endearingly funny as Jenna’s boss, Richard Kneeland. And you just can’t help but give your heart to a tortured Mark Ruffalo when his character struggles with his feelings for Jenna.

Overall, 13 Going On 30 was a sweet and enjoyable show, even if it tried a little too hard to make a statement with its ‘Your life is what you make of it’ undertone. Its sugary aftertaste, unfortunately, didn’t really last long enough.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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