13 Going on 30

It’s a cute but frivolous film that benefits from great music and a cast that’s better than the material.

Watching this reinforced that Jennifer Garner should have been a bigger movie star. She’s got a charming screen presence, yet her filmography is littered with a lot of sub-par stuff (“Valentine’s Day,” “Draft Day,” etc.). I don’t understand why she didn’t catch on more. Perhaps she was one of the last performers for whom a starring TV role was a hindrance to a movie career.

I didn’t see this film when it came out in 2004, so my first viewing of it offered a double dose of nostalgia for two different periods: the late ’80s and the early 2000s. The 2000s stuff–though unintentional–was more notable because it was a pre-iPhone time when print magazines still held sway and city dwellers were forced to hail taxis.