dir. by Kelly Fremon Page
High school as a setting has been slowly declining in the world of cinema for years now, the teen demographic such films would normally target increasingly being taken over by YA fantasy adventures. The Edge of Seventeen, arriving in a surprising wide release after a warm reception at TIFF, might not have the rating to necessarily connect with that audience - its depictions of sex and alcohol earned it an R in the United States, although it's saddled with a much broader 14A here in Canada - but its universal depiction of an older teen struggling to find comfort in a world which seems to be set against her provides a fresh, authentic take on the high school genre.
To Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), it seems like God has forsaken her. She's constantly in second place to her brother Darian (Blake Jenner), she doesn't have many friends, and her mother is woefully ill-equipped to parent, and oh, her father died just three years ago. So when her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) commits the social faux-pas of beginning a relationship with her brother, fracturing their friendship, Nadine's already miserable high school experience gets a whole lot worse.
Describing Nadine's situation of "miserable" suggests that she's built to elicit sympathy, but her insistence that Krista choose between herself and Darian stems more from her own pettiness and self-absorption than anything else, and the way she treats them is difficult to get behind. When she accuses Darian of "not caring about anyone but himself," that quote comes to seem increasingly hypocritical as every situation she winds up in ends with her worrying more about how that affects her than how it affects those around her. This isn't a flaw, though - the film never glorifies her actions, providing enough of others' voices and faces to indicate just as much empathy for Nadine's victims as it has for her.
The film's greatest achievement, then, is that it empathizes with its protagonist's actions without condoning them, acknowledging the destructiveness of her behavior while still granting a window into the feelings of alienation and anxiety which drive it. The specter of her father's death hangs over her even when its role in motivating her is unclear, and the most significant emotions Nadine experiences - that feeling that nobody else understands her, that she is alone in her pain - give her plight a level of universality even when she's at her most infuriating.
Nadine talks so much about how terrible her life is that many other characters are barely ever able to get a word in about how much theirs suck, but one of the most important lines of the film is a reminder that yeah, everyone else's life is shitty as well. Nadine's mom Mona (Kyra Sedgwick) reaffirms this in the film's most significant line, reprinted many times already in reviews of the film: "Everyone in the world is just as miserable and empty as I am, they're just better at pretending." There's a lot of truth to that, and Nadine's arc is only truly over when she comes to understand that fact.
Although Nadine's complexity is the source of much of the film's power, a lot of its smaller joys are derived from the colourful supporting cast, each of whom has their own unique quirks and issues to sort out. Not every character gets equal development, as both Krista and love interest Erwin (Hayden Szeto) have less complex - if still compelling roles, but several characters are just as fascinating as Nadine herself. Already mentioned is Nadine's family, who have taken her father's death just as hard as she has and have the added trouble of needing to deal with each other, and Mona specifically appears to have a soft spot for her brother. As we see later in the film, this stems largely from her inability to effectively deal with the pressures of being a single parent, causing her to frequently call Darian for assistance.
Equally compelling is Nadine's history teacher, Mr. Burner (Woody Harrelson). Burner's scenes mostly transpire over lunch hours when Nadine bothers him about whatever her latest issue is, and Burner provides a lot of the film's comedy by caustically shooting down her self-pity. Initially, this appears somewhat cruel, but as that self-pity begins to appear more and more self-inflicted, it begins to appear more like a dose of reality which she sorely needs. Between the lines of Burner's responses, though, there's the implication of a more troubled person than we see most of the time, and this adds to the film's dark edge.
Much of The Edge of Seventeen is played for drama, delving specifically into the authenticity and specificity of its situations and characters, but at many points it's actually quite funny as well. The witty script from writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig is complemented by clever direction which often derives humour from cuts, and even if the laughs dry slightly by the halfway point, there's a sharpness to the script which keeps the film entertaining even in its most downbeat sections.
This mix of authenticity and humour is key to The Edge of Seventeen's success, and in-betwen Nadine's infuriating self-absorption and her specific issues is a strong degree of universality, and it's here that the film thrives. It's funny and incisive, viewing the teen experience not without judgement but still with a strong degree of empathy. If the film doesn't entirely avoid cliches, it does manage to view those tropes from a fresh angle, and it's all the more powerful for its lack of focus on cliques and authority figures. This is a high school film only concerned with details as they reveal feelings, and in that it finds truth and freshness.
8/10
+ Frequently hilarious.
+ Complex, authentic characters.
+ Profound, universal themes.
- Nadine is at times infuriating.
- Not every character is equally developed.
- Some of Nadine's issues are difficult to relate to.
- Some cliches.
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