Recipe: Take 1 surprisingly versatile rising star
Add 1 charmingly subtle up-and- coming actor
Mix into a bowl of images of a fairytale Manhattan
Add teen awkwardness to taste
Add two tablespoons of trendy '80's nostalgia
Sprinkle a pinch of dancing
Season with bittersweet longing
….And voila! You've got 13 Going on 30, in which Jenna Rink (Jennifer Garner), a 13-year-old girl who, with a little help from some store-bought wishing dust, sees her dream of becoming a glamorous, rich, Manhattan-dwelling 30-year-old woman, come true.
However, as movies like 13 Going on 30 and its male counterpart/predecessor Big show us, being an adult isn't all it's cracked up to be. For one thing, though Jenna is a self-made woman working at her favorite magazine, it turns out she's done some pretty nasty things to get there and to stay on top. Betrayal, infidelity, and extreme dishonesty sort of things. For another, though it seemed like they'd never be apart, when she seeks him out, Jenna's quirky best friend Matt (Mark Ruffalo), also now grown up, claims he hasn't seen her since high school, when she shunned him for the cool crowd. What a bummer.
But, as the fun-loving previews promise, 13 Going on 30 is ultimately here to make you laugh. It's full of physical comedy, a few sharp one-liners, and touches of '80's nostalgia (since this is the era that Jenna just left, after all) that even an '80's nostalgia-resistant type like myself couldn't help but enjoy now and then (love the Lisa Frank folders Jenna decides to put her important work papers in). But this doesn't necessarily mean you won't shed a few tears here and there. Things like friendships that have ended, regrets, and just wanting your mom and dad now and then, ring true for so many of us. That's why this film is just one in a long tradition of kids (or youthful-minded individuals) lost in a Grown-Up's world.
13 Going on 30 does have some interesting twists to it, though. For one thing, instead of having Jenna become a kid trapped in an adult body, who must make her way in the world, she goes instantly from adolescent pouting in the basement of her family's house, to adult falling out of bed in a swank New York apartment. It's not that Jenna has to make a life for herself – the concept here is that she's already done this, but that the last 17 years have been skipped so that she doesn't recall them at all, and can only see their results. This might sound mind-blowing, but the film's
