22 Family Movies Not To Watch With Your Family On Thanksgiving

Courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Thirteen

This is literally a movie I used to steal from my sister, bring to sleepovers, and devour quietly so our parents upstairs couldn’t hear. So perhaps its place on the list is due not strictly to content but to actual personal context, but in any case DAMN this one is intense! As the title suggests, we follow two thirteen year old new best friends, Tracy and Evie. Tracy was once an über good-girl, possibly making up for her mother’s relatively poor/dangerous life choices, but ultimately happy, responsible, and safe. She likes shirts with cute animals on them! But then, she meets Evie. She’s largely unsupervised, she smokes, has piercings, AND HER BELLYBUTTON IS EXPOSED. AT. SCHOOL!!!! It progresses as a relatively predictable good-girl-gone-bad story might, but when you remind yourself (despite the title, it’s easy to forget!!) that they’re ONLY 13, and when you take into consideration that the film was largely autobiographical, written by Nikki Reed (who plays Evie), it becomes all the more disturbing. Sex, drugs, alcohol, theft, and all-around debauchery ensue, until the lifestyle becomes nonviable for Tracy, and she and Evie part ways in a dramatic, heartbreaking, and cringe-worthy showdown. As a teenager, watching this movie felt like the peak of badassery. Now, it’s disturbing, disheartening, and way more Lifetime-y than I remember. And still, always one to be hidden away and watched only in the shadows.

Especially avoid if: Explicit depiction of drug use, alcohol abuse, underage sex, self-harm, and physical abuse aren’t watchable for you. Also, if you have a turbulent and dangerously dysfunctional relationship with your mother, or if your adolescence was particularly degenerate, and you’d rather not be reminded.