Movies about teens are a real gamble, mostly because the spectrum is pretty dang wide for where they can fall in terms of quality. You got your basic bottom tier shlock beer-soaked sex romps with addle-brained boys tripping over themselves in pursuit of getting a girl naked; sports flicks with the hometown heroes juggling a fiesty cheerleader girlfriend and trouble at home; the ugly duckling girl with glasses who catches the hot guy’s attention because she’s more than her looks until she comes down the stairs after a makeover; angst-y rebels headed for trouble hoping their pop songs hits the charts; and of course tense dramas about drugs, tragedy, and genuine pain.
There’s no shortage is all I’m saying, and so when something comes along that sort of does what they all do with a little sumtin’ sumtin’ fresh on the side, it’s worth writing home about. Or at least a film fan site. Here’s a movie that does nothing all that new with the assorted story blocks in the toy bin, but manages to build a pretty solid foundation nonetheless, made all the more appealing by a terrific cast and a sharp script. It’s The Edge of Seventeen.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT: Meet newly seventeen-year-old Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), a high schooler that, surprise surprise, doesn’t quite fit in. She’s not so much a nerdy girl, but one that doesn’t abide by the standard school social dynamic. She has one friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), whom she met in elementary school over a dead caterpillar, and the two have been inseparable since. Or at least until that one night recently when Krista spent the night and um, Nadine caught her in her brother Darian’s (Blake Jenner) room giving him a handjob. Yeah. That made waves.
Thing is, Nadine’s not happy. She was in the car when her father suffered a heart attack and died. She’s been unstable since, angry and feeling betrayed, unwilling to give her struggling mother (Kyra Sedgwick) a chance, and refuses to believe Darian is anything but a conceited jock (hint: he isn’t). Able only to talk honestly with her teacher (Woody Harrelson), she is obsessed over a cute guy (Alexander Calvert) who doesn’t see her while keeping the one good guy in her life (Hayden Szeto) relegated to the friend zone. She’s definitely on edge.
REVIEW: This is a common story, yet retread with a splash of authenticity from a collection of characters and scenarios that are given a slight twist, taking us to points we feel are familiar before gently veering off in another direction. Dotted along the storyline are series of a-b-c moments plucked right out of the teen movie playbook, from locker hallway conflicts, to classroom flirtations, to misunderstood opinions, to hunky guys squinting at longing girls, to hideaway parking at makeout point where things get awkward.
However, writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig isn’t playing with a regulation deck, dealing us a few conventional hands before revealing tricks up her sleeve that give The Edge of Seventeen a weight all its own. That’s led by Steinfeld, a talented young woman who plays right into the girl-out-of-her-time role, feeling her generation is a waste, blindly falling through the cracks with their cell phones and social media posts. And she’s matched by the rest in the small circle, with each one of these finely refined character providing push and pulls in all the right directions, with Harrelson simply terrific and Jenner given a chance to reshape expectations. This is a smart, funny, and often moving little project that should find appeal no matter your age.
THAT MOMENT (NOT) IN: Okay, no doubt if you’re a follower of this long-running series of articles, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing switching up the formula and adding that click-baity (Not) in the title. Let me first apologize for that. Not my intention. I genuinely set out to watch this movie, like I do for all these posts, to find and report what I feel is the film’s defining moment. However, when I shut this one off, I couldn’t help but notice that it wasn’t a moment I’d seen in The Edge of Seventeen that worked well but rather one that I hadn’t.
Let me explain.
Nadine is a good girl with a dark fringe. She loathes the pettiness of modern life and the flighty nonsense of blah blah blah me this and me that. She regularly hangs out in her teacher’s classroom picking “fights” and declaring she’s going to end it all, to which he takes it all in stride, being there for her in the most wonderful of ways (how can half a cookie be so powerful a statement?). Worse, now that she’s lost Krista to her stupid brother, what is left that’s good in her life?
That would be her crush on the smoldering Nick Mossman, who works at the PetSmart. She’s not just thinking about him, hoping he’ll notice her, she’s downright Biblical about it, confessing a lustful, savage need for him to be, well, I guess I’ll just say what she says, inside her (something that sounds more raw than it is since we know just how innocent the hapless Nadine is). Either way, she eventually works up the nerve to dip her toe in the waters at it were, and make an introduction. Then, when she feels this has worked in her favor, she crafts a purposeful text message to him that begins earnestly, sweetly, romantically … the kind that years earlier might be a note you’d find passed in class with a Check Yes or No on it.
Then the text gets a wee bit, shall we say, fleshy. I mean, this girl gets all Penthouse Forum on this guy (wow, that’s an old reference). Close your eyes if you’re of a delicate constitution. She offers a chance for oral sex, then promises he can have his way with her in the PetSmart stockroom. She makes it clear that she is a girl that has no boundaries and is willing to do whatever it takes to get his attention. She types this in a kind of rapid fire stream of conscious that exposes just how embedded she is in her obsession.
Fortunately, she realizes what she’s typing and decides to delete the text. Except that, nope, that’s not what she goes and does. Dang that destiny, she accidentally clicks that send button instead, and now, everything she texted is out there, in Nick’s hands, the sexual confessions of a seventeen-year-old girl worded like a script doctor giving notes on the next sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey. This is going to be bad.
And yet … we come to the moment that wasn’t. And you know where I’m going. If you’re any kind of fan of movies, you’ve probably guessed where this should have gone, with Nadine’s text – in the hands of the callous Nick – circulated all around school and Nadine shamed the next morning while walking the halls as all the judgements fall her way, she the new sex pervert of Central High. Girls would scoff, roll their eyes, and whisper insults. Boys with jut out there chins, make come ons, and whisper cat calls. Her reputation would be ruined and it would take the whole rest of the movie to set it right. How many times have we seen that?
Not so with The Edge of Seventeen though. Nadine certainly experiences consequences for her misguided text, but the film isn’t about the clichés of modern bullying in high school. Turns out, Nick is a genuine character, and while I won’t spoil what happens, I can tell you what doesn’t, and because there is no wildfire spread of Nadine’s message, no school-wide gasp in shock at a young woman’s earnest expression (confused or not) of physical attraction, the story feels all the more honest is allowing Nadine to confront her actions. What a great choice by Craig to run right past the trappings of the genre and do something far better. It’s amazing how the absence of this moment instead makes the movie feel all the more complete.
HEADING FOR THE CREDITS: While plenty about The Edge of Seventeen has its feet in the ruts, the film is bolstered by another good turn from Steinfeld and a few solid dips in the road that keep things fun. Charming, funny, emotional, and perhaps identifiable to many, this is one to bump up on your list.