The Edge of Seventeen is a new coming of age classic
It’s no surprise that Kelly Fremon Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen has been compared to definitive coming of age movies like Clueless, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club, along with modern classics like Mean Girls and Easy A. This is a film that clearly follows in the footsteps of John Hughes for a new generation, and through its acerbic and brutally honest protagonist it shows that it understands how crucial emotion and complexity are to making these narratives work so well.
In what’s certainly one of her strongest performances, Hailee Steinfeld (who was nominated for an Oscar at 14-years-old for her role in True Grit) plays lead character Nadine, a loner who struggles to relate to anyone her own age other than her best and only friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). But when Krista starts dating Nadine’s older brother and nemesis Darian (Blake Jenner), their friendship breaks down and Nadine is left alone again. It’s a premise that might sound a little typical, but is in fact surprisingly moving and hilarious.
For what is Kelly Fremon Craig’s directorial debut, this is a supremely confident film. It has such a clear tone of voice and worldview, and it’s one that it feels like we don’t see so often on the big screen. When Nadine talks about the self-doubt she feels, along with a sense of shame and pain, it’s real and recognisable. Seventeen is bringing something unique and distinctive through such a self-aware and uncomfortable central character, someone who acknowledges her flaws but who is also so trapped in her own perspective that she can’t put herself in somebody else’s shoes.
Woody Harrelson also has a great role as Nadine’s lazy teacher and eventual confidant, who ends up having a more significant part to play later on in the story. Hayden Szeto plays the soft-spoken and awkwardly shy Erwin Kim, who’s eager to get to know Nadine, while Nadine herself seems far more interested in attracting the attention of obviously awful “bad boy” Nick (Alexander Calvert). This whole mess has consequences that are as riotously comedic and they are humiliating for Nadine, and that the film pulls off that balance without ever feeling clichéd is to its credit.
The Edge of Seventeen is told wholly from Nadine’s viewpoint, but not in a way that lessens the dimensionality of the other characters. Her mother (played by Kyra Sedgwick), Krista and Darian all are given shades of nuance and important stories in a narrative that is all about Nadine struggling to see beyond herself and her troubles. This is a committed character study and one that feels honest, ultimately revealing itself to have a lot of emotional depth in the handling of its character arcs.
The film is paced perfectly, with sharp, witty dialogue that makes it a joy to watch too. Steinfeld brings so much to this character in a powerhouse performance that makes it difficult to picture anybody else being able to play this character so convincingly. It’s easy to expect that The Edge of Seventeen is one of the angsty, neurotic teen movies you’ve seen before, but it’s much more than that. By bringing something heartfelt and genuine to this story and this character it becomes something more original and much more special.
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