13 Going on 30 (2004)

Directed by Gary Winick. With Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Judy Greer, Andy Serkis. A girl makes a wish on her thirteenth birthday, and wakes up the next day as a thirty-year-old woman.

Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, TV's "Alias") and Mark Ruffalo (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) star in this hilarious flash-forward romance about a pre-t...

13 Going on 30 (released as Suddenly 30 in some countries) is a 2004 American fantasy romantic comedy film written by Josh Goldsmith and Cathy Yuspa and directed by Gary Winick.

Thirteen-year-old Jenna (Shana Dowdeswell) has had enough with the trials of adolescence. In addition to being saddled with a devoted-but-nerdy best friend, Matt (Sean Marquette), she falls victim to one of the dangers of playing Seven Minutes in Heaven with the coolest kids in school: being stranded without a willing make-out partner. Humiliated, Jenna buries herself in the aforementioned make-out closet, wishing she could skip the whole adolescence bit and move straight into adulthood, and miraculously wakes up just weeks away from her 30th birthday. Of course, a lot has changed since going to bed the night before, not the least of which being an impressive set of womanly curves. The new, older Jenna (Jennifer Garner) is a successful magazine editor with friends in high places and a lion's share of potential suitors -- including a hockey-playing boyfriend and a swarthy married man. The problem is that her mind hasn't matured with her body; Jenna not only finds living on her own more terrifying than cool, but is quick to dismiss any male over the age of 14 as

Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo star in 13 GOING ON 30, a flash-forward romantic comedy about a pre-teen girl who goes from geek to glamorous.

13 Going On 30 (Special Edition): Andy Serkis, Jennifer Garner, Judy Greer, Mark Ruffalo, Gary Winick, Gina Matthews, Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth, LLC; Thirteen Productions, LLC Revolution Studios Development Company: Movies & TV

Jennifer Garner is indeed a charmer, but she's the victim of a charmless treatment in "13 Going on 30," another one of those body switch movies (think "Big," "Vice Versa," "Freaky Friday," etc.) in which a child magically occupies an adult body. The director, Gary Winick, came out of Sundance with "Tadpole" (2003), a movie in which a 16-year-old boy was seduced by a 40-year-old woman, and some of us wondered how well that plot would have worked with a 16-year-old girl and a 40-year-old man. Now Winick finds out, by supplying a 13-year-old girl with a 30-year-old body and a boyfriend who's a professional hockey star. Their big makeout scene goes wrong when she thinks he's "gross," and we fade to black, mercifully, before we find out what happens then. Can you be guilty of statutory rape caused by magical body-switching?

On April 23, 2014 the delightful comedy 13 Going on 30 is going on 10 years old. (Hang in there Jenna Rink, in just 20 years your story will be 30, flirty, and thriving!) 13 Going on 30 took the successful Big formula of a kid living in the body of…

13 Going on 30 is best when it's adorable. Put another way, it's most effective and most fun when Jennifer Garner acts like she's 13.

Elvis Mitchell reviews movie 13 Going On 30, directed by Gary Winick; Jennifer Garner stars; photo (M)