Girls on Tops’s review published on Letterboxd:
If Catherine Hardwicke could be considered an auteur, the argument would certainly favor one specific film with blue hues and stilted performances: 2008’s Twilight, a film which for better or worse launched two stars still blazing and became part of every teenage girl’s memetic lexicon. Hardwicke became a household name; the film was widely panned, and the director declined to return or direct any franchise sequels. If Hardwicke’s name has now become synonymous with the genre of teen coming-of-age drama, it has more to do with Twilight than with her debut film Thirteen, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and remains just as influential.
Throughout the late ‘90s and early 2000s, there were diverting paths of the teen movie: the first involved slapstick comedy, bright colours, and a certain detachment from reality. These films include Bring It On (2000), Mean Girls (2004), and Crossroads (2002) and the less mainstream satires Drop Dead Gorgeous (1999) and Jawbreaker (1999). Replete with dream sequences and drenched in a Y2K aesthetic which is on trend again in 2023 we codified these films as landmarks of the era, returning again and again to them until they became part of our cultural canon. On Wednesdays, we wear pink.
Read more on READ ME: girlsontopstees.com/blogs/read-me/we-owe-our-girlhood-to-catherine-hardwicke