Plot
As the story opens, Jenna Rink (Christa B. Allen) is an unpopular girl celebrating her 13th birthday on May 26, 1987, who wishes to be 30 in hopes that it would help her overcome her unpopularity at school. Jenna especially wants to join the "Six Chicks", a school clique led by Lucy "Tom-Tom" Wyman (Alexandra Kyle), who takes advantage of Jenna's desire to fit in by manipulating her. Jenna's best friend, Matty Flamhaff (Sean Marquette), gives her a doll dream house he built for her and a packet of "magic wishing dust" for her birthday, which is sprinkled on the roof of the house.
Tom-Tom dashes Jenna's hopes of joining the Six Chicks by pulling a cruel practical joke on her during a game of "Seven Minutes in Heaven". Jenna, mistakenly thinking Matt was responsible, yells at him and barricades herself in the closet where she put the Dream House. She cries and rocks backs and forth, bumping into the wall, wishing to be "30, flirty, and thriving". The wishing dust from the dollhouse sprinkles on her, and seconds later, Jenna awakens as a 30-year-old woman (Jennifer Garner) living in a Fifth Avenue apartment, without her friends or family. It is now 2004, but Jenna has no memory of the 17 years that have passed since her 13th birthday.
30-year-old Jenna's best friend, Lucy (Judy Greer) (no longer nicknamed Tom-Tom), drives her to her work office. Soon, Jenna discovers she works for Poise, her favorite fashion magazine when she was a teenager. Missing her best friend from 1987, Jenna asks her assistant to track down Matt. To her dismay, Jenna learns she and "Matty" have been estranged since high school when Jenna fell in with the in-crowd, and that Matt (Mark Ruffalo) is now engaged.
After Jenna overhears Lucy badmouthing her to a co-worker, she sadly realizes that what she thought she wanted wasn't important after all. This is complicated by the fact that Jenna has become a shadow of her former self. She has lost almost all contact with her parents, and she is having an affair with the husband of a colleague. Not only is she generally hated by her co-workers and anyone else she has worked with, she is suspected of giving her magazine's ideas to a rival publication, Sparkle. Jenna slowly realizes that the person she has become is neither trustworthy nor likable, and unknowingly begins to reverse the situation by distancing herself from her new, shallow boyfriend. However, Lucy is determined to steal Jenna's position, so she frames Jenna. From this point on, all of Jenna's work to rebuild her life as a thirty year old woman has gone to waste.
Jenna heads back to her hometown in New Jersey and, while her parents are out, hides in the same closet as 17 years before and cries. Her parents return and find her hiding, and they welcome her in for the night. The next day, she reminisces by looking through school yearbooks and other items from her school days and catch-up on the 17 years she doesn't remember. These inspire her on her return to Manhattan. Over several outings and working together on a magazine project, Jenna becomes friends with Matt again. Although Matt is engaged and Jenna has a boyfriend, they kiss during a nighttime walk.
After arranging a magazine photo shoot with Matt, then making a successful presentation for a planned revamp for Poise, Jenna prepares for the revamp when she gets bad news from the publisher: Poise is shutting down because the work she put into the relaunch ended up in Sparkle. Jenna learns she was responsible for sabotaging Poise from within by sending their material to Sparkle for months. When Lucy learns this, she cons Matt into signing over the photo rights from the relaunch shoot to her. She accepts the position of Sparkle editor-in-chief, using Jenna's work as her own, similar to what she did when the girls were in middle school.
When an already-distraught Jenna discovers Matt is getting married that day, she rushes to his house and begs him to call off the wedding. Dazed, Matt realizes he loves Jenna, but cannot change the past. From his closet, he pulls the "dream house" he made 17 years before and gives it back to her. Jenna leaves in tears, crying over the dream house.
Unbeknownst to Jenna, specks of wishing dust remain on the dream house, and she wishes she was 13 again. When she opens her eyes, she finds herself back in the closet of the basement at her parents' house, 13 years old again. When Matt comes to check on her, she jumps on top of him and they kiss. Being now true to herself, 17 years later, Jenna and Matt are married and live in a house which resembles the dollhouse. It is unknown whether she remembers her past adventure in what might have been her future, but is clearly happy with her life with Matt. What happens to Lucy is also unclear, but it can be presumed she is working at Poise, with an unsecure life.
Read more about this topic: 13 Going On 30
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