---
title: "13 Going on 30"
year: 2004
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/13-going-on-30"
fi1m_id: "13-going-on-30"
imdb_id: "tt0337563"
tmdb_id: 10096
wikidata_id: "Q224187"
fi1m_score: 67
critics_score: 61
critics_reviews: 13
published: "2026-10-02T21:55:54.636695+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-02T22:02:10.749756+00:00"
region: "PT"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# 13 Going on 30 (2004)

Directed by Gary Winick · 1h 38m · Comedy, Fantasy, Romance

## Identity

13 Going on 30

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/13-going-on-30
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** 13-going-on-30
- **IMDb ID:** tt0337563
- **TMDB ID:** 10096
- **Wikidata ID:** Q224187
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337563/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/10096, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q224187

**Fi1m score: 67** · Critics 61 from 13 reviews

*In a sentence:* Jennifer Garner does the Thriller dance and the rest of the film spends ninety minutes trying to keep up

> A thirteen-year-old wakes up in a thirty-year-old’s life, and Jennifer Garner plays the join between the two so well that the film barely needs a second idea. It is just as well, because it has not brought one. Slight, sweet and worth a Sunday evening.

## Synopsis

New Jersey, 1987. Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) turns thirteen and wants one thing: a place in the Six Chicks, the clique run by Lucy Wyman. Her best friend Matt Flamhaff (Sean Marquette), the boy next door, builds her a dollhouse for her birthday and scatters wishing dust over the roof. The party goes wrong, the popular girls humiliate her, and alone in a cupboard she wishes to be thirty, flirty and thriving. She wakes in 2004 in a Manhattan flat, aged thirty (Jennifer Garner), with a hockey-playing boyfriend, Alex (Samuel Ball), an editor’s desk at Poise magazine beside the grown-up Lucy (Judy Greer), and no memory of the years between. She goes looking for Matt (Mark Ruffalo), now a photographer who has not heard from her in years.

## Review

Gary Winick’s comedy begins in 1987 with a thirteen-year-old who wants to be thirty, and grants the wish before the titles have settled. The premise is [*Big*](https://film.one/film/big) with the sexes swapped and the gap widened, and the writers, Josh Goldsmith, Cathy Yuspa and Rita Hsiao, know it and do not pretend otherwise. What they have made is a pleasant, slight, good-hearted film with one real asset and not much around it. The asset is Jennifer Garner, and she is enough to make it worth an evening.

Garner plays a child in a woman’s body without the obvious shortcuts. She does not do a baby voice or mug. She walks slightly too fast, sits with her knees pressed together as if at a school desk, and when a grown man kisses her she goes rigid and then looks for somewhere to wipe her mouth. The best of it is in the eyes: a thirteen-year-old’s delight at a lift, a limousine, a wardrobe full of clothes, with a thirteen-year-old’s panic arriving half a second behind. Winick knows what he has; the camera rarely leaves her.

Mark Ruffalo, as the grown Matt, has the thankless half of the romance. He is the sad, reasonable adult while she bounces off the furniture, and he plays it with a slouch and a half-smile that suggest a man who gave something up long ago. Their scenes together are the film’s warmest. Judy Greer, as Lucy, delivers the office cruelties with relish and is given a third of what she could manage. Andy Serkis, as the editor Richard Kneeland, is the surprise: he plays the boss as flustered and oddly kind, and he dances.

The craft is competent and anonymous. Don Burgess lights Manhattan like an advertisement for Manhattan and shoots 1987 in a warmer, browner light that reads as memory. Garreth Stover gives the Poise offices glass walls and Jenna’s flat the look of a show home nobody has lived in, which is the point. Susie DeSanto’s costumes do the real work of marking the gap, putting the grown Jenna in the colours and ruffles a teenager would pick from a grown-up’s rail. Theodore Shapiro’s score is bright and forgettable and gets out of the way of the pop songs. Susan Littenberg cuts briskly and keeps it to 98 minutes, and it still sags in the middle.

The sag is the magazine plot. Poise is losing readers and Jenna must save it with a redesign, and it takes up most of the second half and is thin. The film also cannot decide what it thinks of the adult Jenna. It wants us to find her career, her flat and her boyfriend empty, and also to enjoy the lift and the limousine and the clothes, and does both without noticing the contradiction. Most critics have let this pass as froth. A few have not, and they have a point: a film whose lesson is that a grown woman was happier at thirteen should have thought about what it was saying.

And yet. There is a party at which nobody is dancing, and Jenna, with nothing else to try, has the DJ put on Michael Jackson’s Thriller and starts the routine alone, until Matt joins her and the floor fills. We grinned through all of it, at Garner’s commitment and at the pleasure of a film letting a happy thing run its full length. Later she turns up at her parents’ house at night and climbs into their bed, and it moved us more than a film this light had any business doing, because Garner plays it as a frightened child and Kathy Baker, half asleep, plays it as a mother who does not need to ask.

*Big* (1988) used the child in the adult’s body to look at the adults, and Tom Hanks made the grown-ups around him look faintly mad. Winick’s film never gets there; its adults are mostly unkind, and its lesson is mostly be nicer. Watch it on a Sunday, with someone who remembers 1987, and do not expect it to survive much thinking afterwards. Garner will. It carries a 12A, and she carries the rest.

*Fi1m score 67, published 2 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics lean the same way: 13 Going on 30 is a frothy, good-natured romantic comedy that nobody mistakes for anything more, and the praise clusters almost entirely on Jennifer Garner. Review after review finds her guileless, energetic and funny, and several say she is the reason the body-swap fantasy works at all. A few also warm to her awkward chemistry with Mark Ruffalo, and the later notices, written years after release, are the fondest of the lot.

The reservations are about everything around her. The premise is called derivative, the plot predictable, the magazine-publishing subplot overlong and full of holes. The sharper dissent is over what the film is saying: The Guardian objects to the idea that grown women secretly want to behave like children, and Slant finds its picture of a happy life narrow and contradictory. The spread is fairly wide, from warm to hostile, but the bulk of the reviews settle in the middle.

## Straight answers

**Is 13 Going on 30 worth watching?**

*13 Going on 30* is worth a Sunday evening for anyone who likes a light romantic comedy, and we scored it 67. Jennifer Garner plays a thirteen-year-old in a woman's body with real care, and she is the reason to watch. The magazine plot around her is thin, and the film has not thought hard about what it is saying.

**How long is 13 Going on 30, and what is it rated?**

*13 Going on 30* runs 1h 38m. It is a comedy and fantasy film.

**Where can I watch 13 Going on 30 in Portugal?**

*13 Going on 30* is available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from €3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is 13 Going on 30, and is it suitable for children?**

*13 Going on 30* carries a UK 12A certificate and contains nothing violent or frightening. It is a gentle comedy about a girl who wakes up aged thirty, and its adult content amounts to a boyfriend, an office and a kiss the heroine does not enjoy. Younger children may find the 1987 opening unkind, since the popular girls humiliate Jenna at her birthday party, but there is little else to worry about.

**How does 13 Going on 30 compare to Big?**

*13 Going on 30* is a slighter film than [*Big*](https://film.one/film/big), which it quotes openly, swapping the sexes and widening the age gap. Tom Hanks's film used the child in the adult's body to look at the grown-ups around him and found them faintly mad; Gary Winick's finds them mostly unkind and tells them to be nicer. Garner's performance stands beside Hanks's, but *Big* is the better film and the one to watch first.

**What should I watch after 13 Going on 30?**

After *13 Going on 30*, try [*Big*](https://film.one/film/big) (1988, Fi1m 81): The film this one is quoting, and the one that thought harder about adults. Then [*Peggy Sue Got Married*](https://film.one/film/peggy-sue-got-married) (1986, Fi1m 79): A grown woman sent back to school; Kathleen Turner finds the sadness under the joke; and [*The Devil Wears Prada*](https://film.one/film/the-devil-wears-prada) (2006, Fi1m 70): The fashion-magazine office done properly, with a boss who is actually frightening.

### Reviews we read (13)

- **Variety**, Joe Leydon (78/100, inferred): Leydon finds the recycled romantic-comedy premise sprightly and entertaining, with strong commercial appeal. He especially praises Jennifer Garner’s energetic, expressive comic performance. [Read](https://variety.com/2004/film/reviews/13-going-on-30-1200534072/)
- **Empire**, Olly Richards (75/100, inferred): The review finds the film cheerfully entertaining despite flaws in its logic and magazine-publishing plot. It praises Jennifer Garner’s guileless comic charm, while wishing the film had made more of its time-travel premise. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/13-going-30-review/)
- **Screen Daily**, Jean Oppenheimer (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a review, but its verdict is unavailable in the visible text. No praise or complaint can be determined from the accessible content. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/13-going-on-30/4018252.article)
- **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The page appears to be a review of the film, but its text is inaccessible. Its verdict and any specific praise or complaint cannot be determined. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/23/movies/film-review-freaky-future-awkward-teenager-finds-herself-fast-forwarded.html)
- **Time Out**, LZ (64/100, inferred): The page identifies this as a review, but the article text is unavailable, so its verdict cannot be determined. The available description introduces Jenna’s wish to be 30 but does not reveal what the critic praises or criticizes. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/13-going-on-30)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Manohla Dargis (60/100, inferred): Dargis finds the comedy lightweight and overly sweet, while judging Jennifer Garner’s performance an appealing showcase for her star potential. She praises Garner’s combination of physical energy and charm, but criticizes the film’s sugary treatment of successful working women. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-apr-23-et-dargis23-story.html)
- **Radio Times**, Sloan Freer (3/5): The critic finds the film cute, frothy and charming despite its plot holes. Jennifer Garner’s delightful, authentic-feeling performance is singled out for making the fantasy work. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-42kvzk/13-going-on-30/)
- **Total Film**, Total Film (3/5): The review finds the film a charming, good-natured rom-com despite its predictability and derivative premise. It especially praises Jennifer Garner’s magnetic, funny performance for elevating the material. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/13-going-on-30-review/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (1.5/4): Gonzalez criticizes the film’s contradictory message about women and its narrow idea of happiness, despite its mockery of fashion-magazine culture. He singles out Jennifer Garner’s effervescent performance and the “Thriller” dance routine for praise. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/13-going-on-30/)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (30/100, inferred): Bradshaw finds the film only occasionally funny and says its premise lacks comic flair. He criticizes its suggestion that adult women yearn to behave like children. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/News_Story/Critic_Review/Guardian_review/0,,1276874,00.html)
- **/Film**, Ethan Anderton (80/100, inferred): Anderton finds the film silly but irresistibly charming, and says it succeeds where Big falls short. He especially praises Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo’s chemistry and the film’s romantic angle. [Read](https://www.slashfilm.com/580518/the-quarantine-stream-13-going-on-30/)
- **Den of Geek**, Simon Brew (3 out of 5): Brew finds the film predictable but glossy, amiable, and good fun. He especially praises Jennifer Garner’s likability and comic performance. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/13-going-on-30-blu-ray-review/)
- **Eye for Film**, Amber Wilkinson (55/100, inferred): Wilkinson finds the film enjoyable despite its formulaic, predictable plot, but says it does not hold up well for older viewers. She praises Jennifer Garner and Mark Ruffalo’s performances and their awkward chemistry, while criticizing the overlong magazine subplot. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/13-going-on-30-film-review-by-amber-wilkinson)

## Details

- **Director:** Gary Winick
- **Director:** Gary Winick
- **Writer:** Cathy Yuspa, Josh Goldsmith, Rita Hsiao
- **Cinematography:** Don Burgess
- **Editor:** Susan Littenberg
- **Music:** Theodore Shapiro
- **Production design:** Garreth Stover
- **Costume design:** Susie DeSanto
- **Producer:** Donna Arkoff Roth, Gina Matthews, Susan Arnold
- **Cast:** Jennifer Garner as Jenna Rink; Mark Ruffalo as Matt Flamhaff; Judy Greer as Lucy Wyman; Andy Serkis as Richard Kneeland; Kathy Baker as Bev Rink; Phil Reeves as Wayne Rink; Samuel Ball as Alex Carlson; Marcia DeBonis as Arlene
- **Runtime:** 1h 38m
- **Release (Portugal):** 22 July 2004
- **Genres:** Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
- **Budget:** $37 million
- **Box office:** $96 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pmFp2W65Fs

## Where to watch in Portugal

- Amazon Prime Video: rent €3.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy €5.99, sd

*Checked 2026-10-02.*

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, IE, IN, IT, LT, MX, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PL, PT, RS, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Big* (1988), Fi1m 81: The film this one is quoting, and the one that thought harder about adults. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/big.md)
- *Peggy Sue Got Married* (1986), Fi1m 79: A grown woman sent back to school; Kathleen Turner finds the sadness under the joke. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/peggy-sue-got-married.md)
- *Freaky Friday* (2003): Mother and daughter swap bodies; Jamie Lee Curtis plays fifteen with no dignity left.
- *The Devil Wears Prada* (2006), Fi1m 70: The fashion-magazine office done properly, with a boss who is actually frightening. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-devil-wears-prada.md)
- *Your Name* (2016), Fi1m 84: Japanese body-swap romance that takes the premise seriously and earns its tears. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/your-name.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/13-going-on-30