I'm a sucker for stories that use sci-fi/fantasy
transformations as a metaphor for puberty. Not indiscriminately, mind you. I'm
not a fan of, say, Michael J. Fox’s Teen
Wolf, or worse still, Jason Bateman’s Teen
Wolf Too, but generally speaking the gimmick has a rewarding way of getting
at the emotional and physical anxieties of adolescence in an appealing way. In
the case of the Disney Channel Original Movie The Thirteenth Year, a 13-year-old boy is suddenly generating low
levels of electricity, dreaming of swimming underwater without a need to come
up for air, and finding his hands inexplicably sticky and developing scales
when in contact with moisture. In case you didn't guess from that list of
symptoms - and I'm reasonably certain WebMd couldn't help you there - he's turning
into a mermaid. Sorry, merman.
Knowing he was adopted heightens his sense of being
different. The kid goes to his parents (Lisa Stahl and Dave Coulier, everyone's
least favorite Full House uncle) and
asks to find his birth mother. They tell him that they found him on their boat
and, though they turned him in to the authorities right away, no one ever
claimed him so they got to keep him. Who knew that finding a baby is no
different than finding, say, 20 bucks on the ground? Finder’s keepers. Maybe it's
maritime law. (Ask Barry Zuckerkorn about that one.) Anyway, what none of them
know is that the infant was put on the boat by a mermaid eluding capture by a
mildly crazy fisherman (Brent Briscoe). In the eye-rolling opening scene, the
man fires up the boat chasing the large shape on his fish-finder sonar (really)
and shouts "If I didn't know better, I'd say this fish was half
human!"
Most of Jenny Arata, Robert L. Baird, and Kelly Senecal’s
script for The Thirteenth Year is
given over to the slow discovery of the boy's mermaid (sorry, merman) powers as they grow stronger and
more frequent. To the movie's credit, there's not a whole lot of struggle here
aside from mildly heightened adolescent angst. It's most enjoyable aspect is
how small and pokey it is as it ambles along. It's about a boy who finds out that
his true identity is as a sea-creature of legend, but the biggest worries he
(or anyone, really) has are that the girl who is sweet on him won't like him
anymore and that he won't be able to participate in the big upcoming swim meet
on account of the fins he'd grow once dunked in the water. A better movie
might've found a way to more convincingly tie in magical angst with such
humdrum concerns, but there's a certain amount of refreshment to find in such a
quiet change of pace.
The director here is Duwayne Dunham, last seen bringing us Halloweentown, another
discover-your-true-magical-identity DCOM. Again, he gets nice small
performances out of the kids in the cast. From Chez Starbuck (what a name!) in
the lead, who overcomes some odd line readings to build up a moderately
affecting performance, to Courtnee Draper (at the time a lead in the Disney
Channel sitcom The Jersey) as the
girl who has a crush on him. I liked how her character knows what she wants and
goes after him, sweetly but forcefully making the first move at every turn.
That's a nice change of pace. The adults in the cast don't make much of an
impact, but at least they aren't relentlessly mugging for the camera. Even the
fisherman from the opening - revealed to be the father of one of the kid's
classmates and ever more obsessed with mermaids in the intervening years -
stays relatively low-key, threatening to grow into a villain before mellowing
out in the movie's little burst of climactic action.
Perhaps most notable is the film's nice seaside palate,
which feels slightly more expansive than the usual DCOM fare. The director of
photography, I was somewhat surprised to see, was Michael Slovis, who also
worked on Halloweentown. Just ten
years after the making of this TV-movie he became a key behind-the-scenes
player on Breaking Bad, helping make that show one of the more gorgeously cinematic - and expansive in its
orientation in the middle of New Mexico's vast landscapes - TV productions I've
ever seen. But maybe you could tell by the way this review keeps veering
off into asides about other bits of pop culture, that there's only so much of interest
in The Thirteenth Year, which is nice
enough and has a good premise, but is basically just the most
middle-of-the-road presentation that premise could've gotten.
Up next: Smart House
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