Directed by: Kelly Fremon Craig
Written by: Kelly Fremon Craig
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson, Blake Jenner
The Edge of Seventeen is a lot like most other teen coming-of-age films; our main character thinks they're better than everyone else while simultaneously hating themself, and they spend most of the film trying to figure themselves out while dealing with the problems that they face. It isn't anything new, but in this case it is very well done.
The film focuses on seventeen-year-old Nadine (Steinfeld), who has issues with how her brother Darian (Jenner) has seemingly always had it easy in life and the fact that her mother has always given him preferential treatment, and whose father died when she was thirteen. Her only friend is Krista (Richardson), whom Nadine has been close with since childhood.
Things begin to change for Nadine when she discovers Darian and Krista the morning after they've slept together. Nadine finds it impossible to deal with the fact that they stay together after this and rudely distances herself from both of them.
What's interesting here is that while the people in the movie do stupid things, it never feels out of character or meaningless. Nadine drives anyone close to her away, she steals her mum's car keys and drives off, she gets herself in to a situation with a boy she barely knows - but all of these things are exactly what you'd expect a self-destructive teen to do. Her mother doesn't know how to deal with Nadine's behaviour, and often acts selfishly, but it makes sense given her clear insecurities. The plot points may have been done before, but the characters here are nuanced to the point that they feel like people rather than characters, and that's why it's so rewarding to see Nadine go through the process of self-realisation. There's genuine heart and effort put in to this film and the process of meditating on character moments, it's almost certainly at least a little bit of a self-portrait.
The dialogue in these sorts of films always toe the line between cleverly witty and far too unrealistic for how people in real life talk, but the film makes it work, particularly with Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson). the one character who somewhat goes against the tropes usually associated with his type of character. If you've seen the trailer, Bruner fits the role of the mentor-teacher character in this coming-of-age film, but instead of offering some awful emotional dialogue that supposed to be profound in some way, he refuses to take the little things seriously, while still offering help when it's truly needed. He's a bit of a dick, and he offers some of the most hilariously scathing lines in the film.
The Verdict: The Edge of Seventeen is very well told, even if it's considerably cliche. The characters are multi-faceted and irrational, problems aren't solved with easy fixes, and every conversation is joyfully cringe-worthy as the main character slowly realises that other people have problems too. I found the film thoroughly entertaining, and absolutely worth the watch.
Rating: 7.5/10
Published January 5th, 2017
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