#335: The Edge of Seventeen

Release Date: November 18th, 2016

Format: Streaming (Hulu)

Written by: Kelly Fremon Craig

Directed by: Kelly Fremon Craig

3.5 Stars

Writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig’s coming-of-age dramatic comedy, The Edge of Seventeen, is a breeze to watch. She’s an excellent example of why it’s often better for a young writer to simply direct their own film rather than handing it off to a more seasoned filmmaker. 

She knows what this movie is because it’s her baby. She knows where the laughs are, where the heart lies, and she allows the thing to unfold exactly as she imagined it. 

Like I said, it is a breezy watch, about an outcast high school girl named Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld, commanding this role with ease) coping with the sudden death of her beloved father (Eric Keenleyside). To Nadine’s horror, she learns that her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) is dating her golden child older brother Darian (Blake Jenner) while her mother (Kyra Sedgwick) grows increasingly frustrated with her while inundated with work and trying to keep her grieving family on the rails.

I’m not sure Craig’s film reaches the emotional depths that the plot suggests, but I don’t think it necessarily fails in this regard. I get the sense that Craig made the film that she wanted to make. It seems realized.

With Nadine’s life seemingly crumbling all around her, she turns to her history teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson, in a scene-stealing performance) for advice. It’s here that Craig’s movie really sings. Steinfeld and Harrelson’s scenes together are the strongest in the film. Their chemistry is immediate, so much so that it must have been apparent to Craig in editing. Here she was mining her film for precious gems, when suddenly she struck gold with these two.

It’s this lovable surrogate father/daughter relationship that hit me hardest. The rest of the movie? Delightfully and pleasantly realized by a filmmaker who knows what she wants.