Movie Review: The Edge Of Seventeen
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- It may not be edgy, but it's got charm, energy, and humor to burn.
The Edge of Seventeen is an entertaining exploration of adolescent angst, a sprightly coming-of-age teen comedy specializing in laughs per gaffe and smiles per mile.
Hailee Steinfeld – who, as a 14-year-old, was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar in 2010 for True Grit – stars as Nadine, a high school junior and a drama queen for whom life is a bumpy road that keeps getting bumpier, especially when her best friend, Krista, starts dating her older brother – who is as popular and admired at school as Nadine is alone and estranged from her surroundings.
This is a coupling that Nadine is freaked out about.
Of course, being freaked out is Nadine's default stance.
Krista, played by Haley Lu Richardson, is told in no uncertain terms by Nadine that she must choose between a best friend and a boyfriend – she can't have both.
And given how close Krista and Nadine's brother, Darian, played by Blake Jenner, have gotten, it's obvious that Nadine's sum total of friends is about to drop from one to none.
Debuting writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, collaborating with James L. Brooks as a producer, is certainly not reinventing the wheel here, but her trust in adept actors to use her lively, true-ringing dialogue to deliver endearing, persuasive, empathetic characters pays major dividends.
It wouldn't be fair to say that Woody Harrelson steals the film because it's actually too assured to be vulnerable to that kind of theft.
So let's just say that Harrelson's limited but crucial scenes as Mr. Bruner, the history teacher Nadine turns to for Yoda-like advice about life as lived are highlights, transcending and enlivening the script as he brings his sharp comic timing and comforting presence to the table.
Similarly, Kyra Sedgwick does wonders with her supporting role as Mona, Nadine's lonely and harried mom, rendered a widow when Nadine's doting dad, played by Eric Keenleyside, dies of a heart attack while in the car with 13-year-old Nadine -- early in the film.
There is also, as you might expect, a love triangle of sorts, in that Nadine is drawn to bad boy Nick, played by Alexander Calvert, who does not return her romantic interest, at least not in any acceptable way.
Meanwhile, there's also a male classmate who's an admirer of Nadine's – Erwin, played by the slyly scene-stealing Hayden Szeto – but Nadine fails to perceive and return the spark.
Instead, she makes contact with Nick and gets up close and personal with his limitations.
Of course, that's Nadine's modus operandi and Steinfeld keeps it real. Her Nadine is both bright and brave, but she's also cynical and suffocatingly self-absorbed.
Otherwise known as seventeen.
Steinfeld gives her millennial protagonist an arc that ultimately delivers. But early on in her warts-and-all portrait, her Nadine is a self-pitying pill, not always easy to take, but in many ways a textbook tormented teen, overreacting to and melodramatizing minor setbacks as major calamities and seeing every glass as half-empty as she brings her clouded vision to her function as our self-deprecating and sometimes self-loathing tour guide.
This is Steinfeld's showiest role since True Grit, and it would seem to set her up for more of the same significant work as she proceeds through her twenties. She is already a top-notch actress who easily holds the screen.
So we'll cope with 3 stars out of 4. Hailee Steinfeld's lead performance is the best feature among many that should make The Edge of Seventeen a tasty tonic for teens, and close to that for ex-teens as well.
