The Edge of Seventeen tries for something a bit better than the standard teen film
Sometimes it seems as if Hollywood is caught in an endless loop. Every few months, the studios cycle through their lineup, a never ending batting order of comic book movies, young adult fantasy movies, horror movies, children’s animation, coming-of-age films, generic action, soap operaeqsue thrillers, and end of the year Oscar bait. Maybe it’s a byproduct of entertainment overload, but after a time, wide-release films tend to run together.
That isn’t to say there aren’t good films within these genres, but seven out of eight of the categories above are aimed at a specific, very youthful audience and the older a person gets, the less they seem to matter. Noticing the trend is a likely indication of age and it seems that at 34, I’m now in my declining years.
The Edge of Seventeen might be a reminder that I’m no longer an important demographic, but it’s entertaining enough to spur memories of when I belonged to such a crucial statistical subgroup. As a film, it isn’t as unflinching and realistic as last year’s Diary of a Teenage Girl, and thankfully much less cringe inducing. It is a witty, paint-by-numbers coming of age film about a girl learning to be comfortable with herself.
Your teenage self never really leaves you. All of your childhood experiences sketch out a shape of a personality, with haphazard lines and odd angles, and as you age, personal relationships begin to color the edges and fill in the spaces until a person begins to take shape.
High school, at least according to movies, is where a person starts to choose these colors. For some, they are vibrant blues and greens and reds, attractive and inviting. For others, they are merely shades of gray.
Nadine (Hailee Steinfield) has layered shades of gray since she was in second grade. She has always had trouble making friends—she talks too much, is too melodramatic, pushing against the current rather than easing into the stream. Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) is her only friend and Nadine’s only source of solace against what she sees as an unfair and unfriendly world. Her brother Darian (Blake Jenner) is her opposite—a shining star of popularity charm. He is a star student and athlete. Another student compares Darian and Nadine to Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny Devito from the movie Twins. It should come as no surprise that when Nadine catches Darian and Krista in an intimate encounter her entire world falls apart.
The Edge of Seventeen covers all the coming-of-age high school tropes—the packed, alcohol fueled house party, the large, teacher-absent social gathering that is high school, the bad boy, the good guy, the clumsy sexual experiences, the angsty, deeply personal revelations that change attitudes and lives. They don’t seem stilted here because of the writing and the talent of the cast, but the film walks a very thin line between clever and contrived.
It is the first film for director Kelly Freamon Craig, who also wrote the screenplay. She is likely a fan of Diablo Cody, as Nadine exhibits a distinct wit, a la Juno, although to her credit she doesn’t invent nearly as many irritating catch phrases.
One highlight of the film is Woody Harrelson as Mr. Bruner, the longsuffering teacher who doesn’t so much dole out advice as encourage his students to leave him alone so he can eat his lunch. In this one instance, The Edge of Seventeen manages to rise above the coming-of-age archetype of the wise adult and step outside of the conventional. It isn’t much, but it helps.
Nadine’s route to self-discovery contains a variety of life lessons, lessons that most adults remember learning themselves. In that regard, the film serves as a reminder of the distance we all travel to become who we are.
The hardest lesson we learn along the way is that the one person we spend the most time with is ourselves and if we don’t like that person life is very long indeed.
Nadine takes a step towards liking herself in the film, and if there is a universal message The Edge of Seventeen is trying to convey, it’s that growing up is hard, but staying young is harder.