As we move squarely into awards season, I wasn’t expecting a teen comedy to be near the top of my must see list, but glowing reviews did just that for Edge of Seventeen. 17 year old Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is an outsider in school. Still badly affected by the death of her father a few years before, she struggles with her relationships with her Mum (Mona, Kyra Sedgwick) and her brother (Darian, Blake Jenner). She has one friend (Krista, Haley Lu Richardson) but when Krista starts dating Darian, that friendship falls apart and Nadine feels completely alone.
In some ways, it feels like we are seeing nothing new in Edge of Seventeen. There are familiar scenes – in a pool, the house party, a boy and girl on a Ferris wheel, but those are given a fresh feel partly because of a smart and witty script by Kelly Fremon Craig, who also directs. You could accuse Nadine of not talking like a teenager – similar to the accusations levelled at Juno a few years ago – but she has so many funny lines, that I can forgive it that. My favourite moments in the film are mostly the ones involving Nadine and her teacher Mr Bruner (the wonderful Woody Harrelson) in his classroom. His laconic, sarcastic character is the perfect foil to the hyper, fast talking younger girl.
There aren’t many scenes that jarred and it only slipped into cliché once, towards the end of the film when Nadine opens up to Darian. Aside from Harrelson, there are some other very good performances, particularly from Hayden Szeto, as Nadine’s bumbling but caring classmate who has a crush on her. Best of all, though, is Steinfeld. Since she broke through with an Oscar nomination for True Grit in 2010, she has been excellent in mostly supporting roles in films of varying qualities. Here, she really shows she is just about the best actress of her generation as she appears in nearly every scene to great effect. At turns annoying, funny, overly dramatic and insightful, it is a brilliantly polished performance.
Centring on a teenager maybe, this is a film that anyone can enjoy.
Rating: 8 out of 10