arts & culture
‘13: The Musical’ A Blemished
Coming-of-Age ecoming a bar or bat mitzvah
signifi es entry into Jewish adult-
hood, but it hardly means you’re
a grown-up.

With patchy mustaches and voices that
crackle and squeak, 13-year-old boys are
certainly not yet men.

For proof, see Evan Goldman,
a preteen forced to relocate from his
Manhattan hometown to the Indiana
suburbs, caught up in his parents’ messy
divorce. Th e move is made even harder
by his looming bar mitzvah date and the
existential challenge that accompanies it:
throwing a banger party.

Th e trials and tribulations, victories and
defeats of his story are told in the toe-tap-
ping “13: Th e Musical,” the now-stream-
ing Netfl ix fi lm adaptation of the 2008
Broadway show of the same name.

But Evan (Eli Golden) isn’t the only
pre-pubescent with problems. Upon
begrudgingly moving to Walkerton,
Indiana — a town with no Jews — he
meets Patrice (Gabriella Uhl), a bespec-
tacled junior climate justice warrior, and
Archie (Jonathan Lengel), a dry-humored
neighbor with muscular dystrophy.

When the eighth-grade school year
starts for the intrepid middle schoolers,
trouble follows. In a web of crushes and
the crushing blows of growing up, the
story’s heroes demonstrate their under-
developed frontal lobes.

Th ough it has an appealing prem-
ise and snappy soundtrack, “13: Th e
Musical” gets stuck on the details and
loses the bigger picture, mirroring the
myopic mindset of the tweens it depicts.

Th e plot of the fi lm is sandwiched
between two bold numbers, “13” and “A
Little More Homework,” which feature
“13: The Musical” culminates in
Evan Goldman’s bar mitzvah.

not only an impressive array of talent
from child actors, but a refreshingly self-
aware depiction of tweendom, as the
characters belt about how their lives are
only just beginning, how they have so
much to learn and grow from.

Th e musical’s bookend tracks deceive
the movie’s middle, which, despite its
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lack of nuance, still manages to be a
challenge to watch. Determined to make
up for the peers he lost in his move from
New York and beef up his bar mitzvah
attendee list, Evan does whatever it takes
to make fast friends.

Despite “13”’s bright colors and decep-
tively sunny Indiana skies, the fi lm is
undoubtedly self-serious, which seems
out of place given the surface-level strug-
gles of the characters. Th e fi lm’s open-
ing number promises growth beyond
growth spurt, but “13” instead delivers
an overly tidy resolution to its confl icts.

And while the fi lm adaptation pre-
sented an opportunity to update the pop
culture references from 2008, the fi lm-
makers instead make vague references to
YouTube and selfi es.

As the fi lm's confl ict resolves itself
throughout multiple songs and dances,
the culmination of the fi lm in Evan’s bar
mitzvah falls fl at. Aft er an all-too-short
Haft orah (which would make any Jewish
tween jealous of its brevity), Evan deliv-
ers a d’var Torah about everything he’s
learned from the past few months (with no
mention of his Torah portion!) to a crowd
of whooping and cheering classmates.

He makes the requisite comment to his
young, hip rabbi (Josh Peck) about a bar
mitzvah not being about a party aft er all,
but goes on to host a big bash anyway, the
depth of the lesson as shallow as many of
the characters’ development.

Th ough replete with tuneful tracks
requisite for a Broadway soundtrack, “13”
falters in its plot, and the moral of the
fi lm gets lost in the shuffl e, bop and boo-
gie of it all. JE
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of Alan Markfi eld/Netfl ix
B SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER