The Edge of Seventeen, a film directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, starring Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson, however, manages to hit a number of relatable notes that define the teen dramedy genre.
Most teen-centric movies fail to tap into the angst that teens go through during those hormone-raging years. The Edge of Seventeen, a film directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, starring Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson, however, manages to hit a number of relatable notes that define the teen dramedy genre.
In the first scene, when 17-year-old Nadine Franklin (Steinfeld) enters the classroom of her History teacher, Mr Bruner (Harrelson), and dramatically tells him that she is going to kill herself, it connects with the narcissistic feeling every teen experiences — the need to feel that everything in their life is super-important. We immediately get a sense that Nadine is struggling to establish her own identity within the high-stakes world of her high school.
The movie starts with a cliffhanger and then rewinds to reveal the circumstances that lead to Nadine’s breakdown. We meet the unpopular Nadine, her all-star sports hero brother (Blake Jenner), her only friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), her dysfunctional mother, and her caring father.
But, Nadine’s world crumbles around her when her brother starts dating Krista, and she sets out on a self-destructive journey to cope with the loss.
The snappy rapport between Nadine and Bruner are some of the best bits in the film. We are also introduced to Nadine’s unlikely ally Erwin (Hayden Szeto), the slightly nerdy classmate who harbours a crush on her. The dynamics between the characters is great. We all can identify with that moment when Nadine accidentally sends a Facebook message to her schoolboy crush, Nick. Her interactions with each character clearly depict what every teenager yearns for — the need to be heard, accepted, and get attention.
What makes Nadine, and the film, so compelling? The fact that she isn’t always nice. She laughs at her follies, but she doesn’t suffer fools. She can be mean and impulsive (weren’t we all, as teens?), and she’s more than not a victim of her own undoing. Her character makes this jumble of contradictions feel relatable. She doesn’t want us to fall in love with this perfect girl who’s perched on the edge of womanhood. She just tries to make Nadine a character every teenager can relate to — and that’s what makes The Edge of Seventeen one of the best coming-of-age teenage movies in a long time.
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 "THE-EDGE-OF-SEVENTEEN")
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