Thirteen (2003) Dir. Catherine Hardwicke & The Virgin Suicides (1999) Dir. Sofia Coppola
Comparative Analysis
Lauren Branch
The Candid Nature of Female-Crafted Coming-of-Age Stories
Much like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the formative years of adolescent womanhood hinge on one essential thing: belongingness. The period of time in which a girl becomes a woman is plagued with complex tests on her path to identity; tests of decision-making, peer pressure, self-consciousness, societal expectations, external dangers, and so on. Pubescent young adult women universally experience tribulations that extend far beyond geographic, generational, or socioeconomic bounds, and are best understood by women themselves, just as my mom, aunt, grandmother, cousins, female friends and peers best understand me, as an adult woman, from a place of experience and empathy. The hardships of female adolescence can be raw and unforgiving, and thus their illustrations in both Catherine Hardwicke’s Thirteen and Sofia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides are just as harrowing. Hardwicke’s Thirteen authentically captures an innocent young woman who, in hopes of elevating her social status, stumbles into “cool girl” territory and drowns in a tidal wave of drugs, alcohol, sex, abuse, crime, and overall external pressures, costing her a valuable mother-daughter relationship and knowledge of her self-worth. Similar in themes yet different in approach, Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides is more of a slow burn, chronicling the short lives and mysterious deaths of the five Lisbon sisters through the lens of teenage boy fascination. Both films explore themes of puberty, female adolescence, familial relationships, class, status, mental health and societal pressures, yet through differing narratives, tones, and unconventional styles both films capture sharp angles, crafted by female storytellers, on what it means to endure young womanhood.
The character relationships and overall themes of Catherine Hardwicke’s 2003 drama Thirteen are so striking and unrefined that they are almost difficult to stomach, and they force audiences to fervently pray that Tracy’s misfortunes remain only on the pages of a screenplay. Tracy (Evan Rachel Wood) is the average thirteen-year-old girl with a gentle, juvenile appearance and a close relationship with her hairstylist mother, Mel (Holly Hunter), living a lower/middle-class lifestyle in early-2000’s California. When Tracy’s attention is caught by it-girl Evie (Nikki Reed), whose provocative style and edgy attitude strikes the fascination of boys at school, Tracy becomes nothing short of obsessed with following in Evie’s platform heel footsteps. From tongue piercings to stealing to drug abuse, Tracy spirals into a vat of “angsty girl” Kool-Aid all posing as a superficial façade for her underlying depression and dissatisfaction with her own life, leading Tracy to an immensely dark mental state involving cutting herself and life-threatening behavior. As if Tracy’s personal spiral weren’t enough, what adds to the tug at the heartstrings is watching Tracy’s tender relationship with her mother, Mel, dwindle because of Tracy’s behavior and attitude. Mel is a vibrant and caring young mother whose hairstyling job, history with substance abuse, and overall lower-class lifestyle has forced her to raise her family on the margins of mainstream society, which Tracy evidently views as a fatal flaw on her road to high status. Despite Mel’s dodgy on-and-off lover and her spotty relationship with Tracy’s father, Mel never gives up on supporting and reassuring Tracy of her affection even as Tracy strays further from her sense of self. However, with their transparency fading and Tracy’s rebellion intensifying, their once strong mother-daughter connection gradually weakens, sending a pang through the hearts of witnesses.
What this ultimately boils down to is a severe form of the inevitable insecurity faced by adolescent women combined with severe forms of external pressure impeding from the outside world. The principle that young girls lash out with extreme behaviors as physical emissions of emotional or psychological internal battles certainly rings true for Tracy. The extremity of what she partakes in – crime, substance abuse, sex, self-harm, etc. – is a ferocious visual representation of the elements of truth and conflict that lie beneath her situation at face-level. Ignited by the arrival of Evie, Tracy, in human nature, wants what she can’t have: social status, and Evie is her one-way ticket to achieving queen bee prestige at the cost of sacrificing who she once was. Thus, Tracy’s identity crisis and her lack of self-assurance drive her to obtain a newer and seemingly more “desirable” identity, that being the identity of Evie. Though the activities and behavior that Tracy participates in may be harmful and radical, this identity crisis is not abnormal for young teenagers to experience, seeing as they are still trying to figure out who they are. Therefore, the inevitable identity conflict experienced by young teens combined with compounding variables of peer influence, abuse of substances, and depressive thoughts only causes Tracy to act out even more drastically.
Because Thirteen is such a raw depiction of young womanhood and provides such a candid view of both mother-daughter strife and young female friendships, it is important to look inward and learn about the woman behind the story. Catherine Hardwicke, born in 1965 Cameron, Texas, originally studied architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, and after a short-lived architecture career she took up filmmaking and studied at the UCLA film school. In the late-90’s to early-2000’s time period, Hardwicke began a relationship with the father of actress and co-writer of Thirteen, Nikki Reed, sparking a friendship between the director and the young teen. Even after Hardwicke’s relationship with Reed’s father ended, they kept up their friendship and began collaborating on the screenplay for Thirteen, which was largely modeled after Reed’s increasingly angsty behavior as a thirteen-year-old at the time. The writing concluded in just one week, and Hardwicke became adamant about shooting it as soon as possible because she wanted Reed to be in it authentically as a young teen, rather than years down the road as an older actor unrealistically playing a young teen (Desta, 2018). Following the success of Thirteen on platforms such as Sundance, Hardwicke went on to direct what she would become most well-known for, and that is the first and original Twilight movie. Despite controversial opinions of Hardwicke’s films, she has always stuck to her guns on promoting female filmmaking in expressing that “It goes on and on. They’re stories written by women, about women, and given to male directors.”, due to the fact that “Hollywood has a tendency to hand projects written by and starring women over to male filmmakers” (Desta, 2018). Proving that in modern day, the industry should be grateful to have such quality content about women and by women, considering female creators were so pitifully valued at the time of its release.
In the same vein, Sofia Coppola’s 2000 drama The Virgin Suicides, an adaption of the 1993 novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, lies within the same song as female adolescence and familial discord but while hitting different notes. The Virgin Suicides is told from the perspective of a handful of smitten teenage boys from the 1970’s Michigan suburb that also houses the five mysterious Lisbon sisters, who, before their eventual fates, capture the attention of their peers with their enigmatic existence. With no-nonsense parents who are the perfect prototype for straight-edge guardianship, the Lisbon sisters reside in a house of strict rules, clean music, low hemlines and high necklines. The film opens on a sobering note when the youngest of the sisters, thirteen-year-old Cecilia Lisbon (Hanna Hall), attempts suicide by cutting her wrists, survives the first attempt, and eventually succeeds by jumping from her roof onto a sharp fence. This first death sets a precedent for the fates of the remaining four, allowing them to embrace their mundane universe of impassive youth around them before they decide to leave it. The arguable ringleader of the group, fourteen-year-old Lux Lisbon (Kirsten Dunst), reels in a faint attraction from many of the boys she encounters, as if entranced by a trace of perfume from a passing wave, strong enough that she hypnotizes the school’s signature jock and eye-candy, Trip Fontaine (Josh Harnett), into pursuing her for a homecoming fling. After duly intoxicating the neighborhood studs with cheek kisses and coy flirting, the remaining Lisbon sisters abandon their sheltered, meaningless realities by each committing suicide in a different manner all throughout their house, only to be discovered, and forever worshipped, by their neighborhood onlookers.
The entirety of this film hinges on the idea of ambiguity and leaving everyone, characters and audience members alike, with many questions. The story carries us from point A, the everyday monotony of Lisbon life, to point C, their explicit suicides, with little to no explanation of point B, the path to their demise. Their precise motivations are untransparent and undecipherable, and ultimately become the grey area that, because of their ambiguity, so heavily entice the narrators to unravel the story. The opening line literally elaborates “On the morning that the last Lisbon daughter took her turn at suicide”, telling the viewer, right out of the gate, that they all die (The Virgin Suicides, 2000). Following the opening monologue, it is made very apparent from the exposition that Lisbon life in suburban Michigan is about as bland as sandpaper, thus, it becomes up to us as detectives to not only ponder the obscurity of Lisbon life pre-death, but to ponder the fleeting lives of those around us in reality. What the peers know of the Lisbon sisters, while they are alive, is captured in snapshots and passive moments in time to maintain their ambiguity, conveying the sense that if you blink, you’ll miss them. These passing moments make it intentionally difficult to piece together the truth, and they irregulate the sequences in which events are clarified to the blind eye. In contrast to Thirteen, where Tracy’s motivations and conflicts are plainly displayed, the motivation for the Lisbon girls comes in the form of implication and assumption meaning that our estimated guesses, based on the preexisting conditions of their lives and what we know of the girls, are as good as any. Whether it was the dreariness of their routine lifestyle, their strict living conditions, or reasons unbeknownst to anyone but themselves, the deaths of the Lisbon sisters inspire a reevaluation of the society we think we know.
In choosing to pursue The Virgin Suicides as a project, Sofia Coppola was prepared and unafraid. Coppola, born 1971 in New York City, was born and bred into filmmaking with a renowned filmmaking father, Francis Ford Coppola, and a famous filmmaking mother as well, Eleanor Coppola. She was raised in northern California and actually, due largely to the universe she was born into, was initially turned off from pursuing film and went on to study painting at the California Institute of the Arts, where she embarked on rather brief dabbles in art, modeling, photography, and fashion. By the mid-90’s, she decided to give film a try and created two short films, Bed Bath, and Beyond (1996) and Lick the Star (1998), propelling her to adapt and write The Virgin Suicides, her first feature-length film. Originally, a studio had actually already written and started developing an adapted screenplay for The Virgin Suicides, but after disappointment with their working script and catching wind of Coppola’s self-written script, they decided to go with Coppola’s (Blumberg, 2018). Following her successful feature debut, Coppola would go on to notably direct Lost in Translation (2003), Marie Antionette (2006), and The Beguiled (2017), and she became the first ever American woman to be nominated for Best Director at the Oscars. Coppola’s films often center around female protagonists, and with female-centric stories rarely shaped by women themselves, her stories serve a certain punch and authenticity that comes with woman-led craftmanship.
Notable distinguishing differences between Thirteen and The Virgin Suicides come in the form of narrative technique, and how the stories are chosen to be told and perceived. Thirteen zooms in, and The Virgin Suicides zooms out, meaning that we dive headfirst into Tracy’s transformation and leave with very few questions, whereas the sparce insight we accumulate of the Lisbon sisters is designed to leave us with unresolved questions. The innerworkings of Tracy’s psyche, and every step of Tracy’s spiral, are elaboratively illustrated with in-depth realism and unrestraint, seeing as we vividly encounter close-ups of Tracy cutting herself, Tracy and Evie both kissing and hitting each other, and a flashback of Tracy discovering her mother’s lover doing drugs in their bathroom. While Hardwicke holds nothing back, Coppola tugs on the reigns of restraint to maintain secrecy, the very secrecy that drives the story’s entire narration. The story of the Lisbon sisters is sheathed by a faint curtain of unknowingness, in that we are not supposed to dive headfirst into the Lisbon story because our narrators do not even have that luxury. Even in the final scenes, after the suicides have been committed, there is no explicit or relentless depiction of their gruesome finales, there is no explicit documentation or explanation of their reasoning, and us viewers are grasping at straws with what we’d been given to draw a logical conclusion of these events. With such little explanation, drawing a conclusion is almost entirely reliant on interpretation and what is implied, in contrast to Tracy’s situation, where her values and struggles are evident and clear.
Both Tracy and the Lisbon sisters encounter differing surrounding factors that are influential in the trajectory of their lives, and that are largely telling of their respective situations. Major notable differences between Tracy’s life and Lisbon life are the generational, geographical, and class differences between 1970’s upper-middle class Michigan and 1990’s lower-middle class California, and familial differences in how their respective household dynamics operate. Many of these factors are intertwined with other areas of their lives, and thus generate a domino effect so when one area is lacking, other areas consequently fall too. For Tracy, part of the fuel that drives her passion for transforming her life is the inability to have what others easily have, particularly in pop-culture California surrounded by teens. Tracy’s resentment toward her lower-class life is consequently intertwined with her plummeting mother-daughter relationship, seeing as she becomes rather resentful toward her mother for the less-than-bougie lifestyle that they live. The best display of this comes in a scene where Tracy, Evie, and Mel are out shopping and Tracy wants flashy decorative jeans that Mel cannot afford, triggering an obvious wave of embarrassment for Tracy. Later, Mel whips out her sewing kit and sews on a replica of the decorative accessories that were on the original jeans as a frugal way to hopefully cheer Tracy up and give her what she wanted, yet Tracy responds with snotty disapproval and an ungrateful comment at the makeshift gift. Despite Tracy’s discontentment, Mel never lets Tracy’s attitude affect her consistent support for her daughter, only further widening the one-sided distance between Tracy and Mel.
Contrastingly, the Lisbon sisters live a relatively comfortable life financially, yet do not have the emotional connection with their parents that Tracy had the privilege of having. The Lisbon parents are active members of the community, but they are stone cold in nature and lacking in warmth toward anyone, including their daughters, raising the possibility that the lack of a loving environment in the Lisbon household may contribute to the Lisbon conspiracy. It is particularly interesting to evaluate the dynamic of the Lisbon household after the death of Cecilia, considering that after their youngest daughter committed suicide, the amount of love, warmth, and reassurance circulating through their family did not seem to increase, which also poses the possibility that Cecilia’s death may have only made the family colder and more separated from one another. The overall most resonant difference between the circumstances of Tracy versus those of the Lisbon girls is that Tracy has the love and support, but does not have the resources and status, whereas the Lisbon girls have the resources and status, but do not have the love and support.
Stylistically, Thirteen and The Virgin Suicides differ drastically in their appearances and thus create distinct atmospheres to convey each specific universe. Thirteen consists of extreme sharpness in angles and framing, and cool color composition with a booming soundtrack to mimic both the culture of the time and the chaos of the film’s thematic universe. Between the canted angles and close-ups, sporadic editing, blueish coloring, edgy music cutting, and gothic styling, Hardwicke is conveying the appearance of a ‘90’s punk music video to reflect Tracy’s punk rebellion and the world in which Tracy is melding into. Coppola, however, plays on the softness of the Lisbon sisters and utilizes slower tracking shots, pastel colors in composition and costuming, heavy exposure in lighting, airy spaces, rather simple and realistic locations, strategic framework to only reveal partial aspects, such as only revealing the girls partially in the final sequence of suicide scenes.
Hardwicke and Coppola, however, do indeed compare thematically in that both filmmakers strive to position their female protagonists at the center of their stories, and draw emphasis on adolescent women as capable and enigmatic. Both address themes of fluctuating adolescence, societal attention, depressive or suicidal thoughts or behavior, familial relationships, and increased individual agency centered around female protagonists and through the lens of female storytelling. Thirteen more explicitly and introspectively explores what we know as feminist themes, such as female relationships, female personal growth, and gaining individuality and agency, although detrimental to Tracy in the film, and are crafted with a first-hand perspective at the hand of a female storyteller. In the “Post-Feminism and Popular Culture” reading from class, McRobbie proposes the idea of “needing to be able to theorize female achievement predicated not on feminism, but on ‘feminine individualism’”, and viewing young women as independent beings who are able to grow and achieve independently (McRobbie, 260). On a similar note, The Virgin Suicides presents a birds-eye view of feminism that doesn’t quite strike it dead center but doesn’t ignore feminist aspects of storytelling completely. With puberty, adulthood, and graduating adolescence comes the responsibility of agency and decision-making, which the Lisbon sisters are adamant about exercising in their lives as much as they can under the rule of their parents. Between delegating their choices of men and ultimately conjointly delegating to end their lives, the Lisbon sisters withhold a substantial amount of self-assurance that allow them to convey a passive energy toward everyone they encounter, instead of feeling a need to fight for their identities. However, what is shown of the Lisbon sisters is in relation to their male narrators and their peers, and therefore inherently, just by design, revokes the sense of individualism that would be conveyed if their existences were less intentionally cryptic. Ultimately, what is predominantly displayed by both Hardwicke and Coppola is the purity of explorative adolescence, and maturing to new forms of choice, and as McRobbie states, manifesting girls who have a “lifeplan” who “take responsibility and are not dependent” in order to face “the kinds of scenarios and dilemmas facing the young women characters in the narratives of contemporary popular culture” and in the climate in which we live today (McRobbie, 261).
Despite juxtaposed approaches in presenting their stories, both Hardwicke and Coppola incorporate a candidness and realism in illustrating their universes, and deliver important, much needed takes on the perils of young womanhood. Most interestingly, Thirteen and The Virgin Suicides are unafraid to explore how internal factors, like depressive thoughts and identity crises, and external factors, like family, societal pressures, cultural climate, and geographic space, have a reciprocal relationship and can lead to an impactful outcome. With the courageousness of female protagonists and our continuing eagerness to listen, female filmmakers will continue to portray meaningful relationships and endeavors that are largely a reflection of the adolescent female experience. In fact, it is our moral obligation as a society to continue learning from female stories of truth, insight, and sincerity, and to never underestimate the young women around us.