GROWING PAINS TEEN'S LIFE PORTRAYED WITH EXCRUCIATING REALISM IN 'THIRTEEN'.

Byline: Evan Henerson Staff Writer

Nikki Reed has a pierced tongue. It's there, it's visible and, like so many other aspects of her life these days, she has no problem talking about it.

``My mom took me to get it done,'' the actress and co-writer of the new film ``Thirteen'' says. ``I was, like, 11 1/2, almost 12, but my mom took me, so it wasn't like in the movie.''

With Reed and ``Thirteen,'' the fiction/reality line can get a bit blurry. The film is based on the experiences of a then-13-year-old and now-15-year-old Reed, whose clashes with her mother and experiences with a fast crowd at school were a drama of their own. It's directed by first-time director and ``surrogate mother'' Catherine Hardwicke, who co-wrote the script with Reed as a kind of diversionary exercise.

Hardwicke has known Reed since she began dating Reed's father, art director Seth Reed, when Nikki was 5. Around the time Reed was entering her teens, Hardwicke noticed a change in behavior and decided to take steps.

``It's not like I was looking for a writing partner,'' says Hardwicke. ``My whole idea was to get her to do more creative activities instead of destructive activities, just try to, like, broaden her mind. 'Let's go to museums, let's take acting classes, let's learn how to surf,' do interesting stuff instead of some of the things you see her doing in the movie.''

Reed also stars in the film, but instead of playing Tracy - the character her life inspired - Reed takes on manipulative best friend Evie. Tracy is played by former ``Once and Again'' star Evan Rachel Wood. Oscar winner Holly Hunter (``The Piano'') plays Mel, Tracy's mother, who tries to hold things together as her daughter's life spins out of control.

Hunter, who also served as executive producer, embraced the idea of playing a mother who was wrestling with complications of her own. Mel is a single mom, a hairdresser who works out of her home, as well as a recovered alcoholic who is involved with a younger man (played by Jeremy Sisto), who Tracy hates. Mother and daughter have always been close, until Evie and her crowd enter the picture.

``This is a time in life when the solutions aren't two-dimensional,'' says Hunter. ``The solution might be years in the making. Everything is rising and converging, and things are coming together in a very violent way. And at the same time, Melanie's always trying to meet these conflicts with gentleness. She doesn't gain her own equilibrium throughout the course of the movie. She's always off-kilter. That attracted me the most.''

Prefilming girl bonding was encouraged. Wood, Reed and Hunter had a sleepover at the Valley Village house where much of the filming took place. They ordered food, dressed each other up, took a drive and ended up parading Hunter through Gelson's, a fright-wigged teen on each arm.

``The first day in the house, we didn't want to leave because we were having so much fun,'' recalls Wood. ``We actually ended up going out in public and nobody cared. It was like, 'Oh, there's Holly Hunter and two prostitutes,' and nobody looked twice. I was like, 'Only in L.A.' ''

Hunter recalls the experience as being ``a blast.'' As sobering as ``Thirteen's'' subject matter may be, life in the early teen isn't all adolescent angst. ``These girls made it look like an awful lot of fun,'' says Hunter.

Shot on a shoestring budget over 24 days, ``Thirteen'' took the Director's Prize at Sundance Film Festival in January and was purchased by Fox Searchlight, which will open the film in limited release Friday. With its no-pulled-punches look at the risky behavior of adolescent girls, it's the polar opposite to the 'tween summer fantasies of ``What a Girl Wants'' and ``Lizzie McGuire.''

Forget about shopping, glitter and stuffed animals. ``Thirteen'' opens with Tracy and Evie - both quite high - in full giggle mode while beating the tar out of each other trying to see whether they can still feel pain. We then go into the past to see how the former good-student, straight-arrow Tracy got to this state - with all the sex, drugs, petty theft, piercings and cuttings that accompanied the journey. The film could assure first-time director Hardwicke of not having to return to the world of set decoration (her credits include Cameron Crowe's ``Vanilla Sky'' and David O. Russell's ``Three Kings.'') ``Thirteen'' could also potentially make a star out of Reed, whose vampy Lolita-ish turn is startling.

But first things first. ``Because I'm 15,'' Reed says during an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, ``I want to go to high school. I don't have any plans right now. I just want to go back to school.''

The words seem peculiar coming from someone with Reed's persona. In looks and in speech, there's nothing even remotely girlish about the young woman who has become accustomed to deflecting even the most personal questions during her ``Thirteen'' publicity duties.

Reed shrugs off the attention and the potential shock value of the material. It's a film without a message, she says, although she hopes that, despite the R rating, teenagers will see ``Thirteen.'' Potentially with their parents. And yes, life under the Hollywood microscope can get a bit intrusive.

``It's hard knowing that something so close is spread out around the world for people to just ... I can't say 'abuse,' '' says Reed, ``but journalists don't really have a limit. So I've gotten all sorts of questions, and I'm, like, 'Whoa! You should not be asking that!' ''

``Then again, I put myself in that position,'' she continues. ``I put myself in the position of, 'Here, go and ask me whatever you want because here's a movie, and it's just like my life.' It's been hard for me, but I think it's been harder for my family, because they can't defend themselves.''

How much self-defense anybody needs is open to speculation. Reed reports that certain aspects of the film have been embellished, while others have been scaled back.

``The scenes and the relationship with my mother were definitely under-exaggerated in the film because it was so much worse in real life,'' says Reed. ``I was a brutal child to my mother. People are watching this Tracy, going, 'How dare she disrespect her mom like that.' And I'm thinking, 'Well, that wasn't that bad.'''

For the record, relations have improved between Reed and her mother. She lives with her father, but sees her mother every day. Both parents have seen the film, several times in her mom's case.

Neither parent has commented much to Reed, although Reed says she knows they're in her camp.

``Every time we show it, my mom sits through it, cries, gives me a hug and tells me she's proud of me. My dad hasn't said one thing. He won't see it anymore, but he's supportive. By looking at them, I can tell they have stuff to say, but it's inside.''

Evan Henerson, [phone]

evan.henerson(at)dailynews.com

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4 photos

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Life as a movie, and vice versa 

`Thirteen' blurs the line between cinema and painful reality

(2 -- 3) Evan Rachel Wood, left, plays Tracy, a character based on Nikki Reed, above, in ``Thirteen.''

(4) Catherine Hardwicke makes her directorial debut with ``Thirteen.''

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer