Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, vulgarity and some bad teen behavior
By Derrick Bang
Aside from the cool kids — the
ones never short of friends and flunkies, and who never seem to embarrass
themselves — everybody else, up through high school, inevitably goes through a period
of misfit insecurity.
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| After committing the worst possible blunder, in an era when a single click can expose an ill-advised comment to the entire world, Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) bares her soul to history teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), who'd clearly prefer to enjoy his lunch break in peace. |
(In truth, it probably happens to
the cool kids, as well. But they never let on.)
In Nadine’s case, it started
shortly after birth. By the time she hit second grade, at age 7, she already
knew that life — God — had dealt her a rotten hand, and that she’d be a loser
her entire life. Taunted by classmates. Plagued by a hopeless clothes sense.
Forever in the shadow of an all-too-perfect older brother, the apple of their
mother’s eye.
Doomed.
Writer/director Kelly Fremon
Craig’s The Edge of Seventeen comes
with one of the best tag lines I’ve seen: “You’re only young once ... is it
over yet?” It’s an apt description: Craig has an unerring ear for the
catastrophes of a disenfranchised high school girl in the modern world, whose
outsider status is a quabillion times worse, in this age of social media
status.
This film is endearing,
embarrassing, poignant and cringe-hilarious: hard to watch for all the ways in
which it looks, sounds and — worst of all — feels
familiar. We’ve been there. Experienced the end of the world. And, yet,
endured. (That which doesn’t kill us...)
The last bit is what worries
Nadine, who genuinely fears that her life Never. Will. Change.
Craig’s savvy script fuels the
narrative, but the film gets its heart from star Hailee Steinfeld’s adorable,
heartbreaking lead performance. Now grown into a high school junior, Nadine is
an angst-laden, long-suffering tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions, who
manages to be both vulnerable and insufferably self-absorbed. That requires
deft acting chops, and Steinfeld delivers.
On the home front, the sibling
situation has become worse. Older brother Darian (Blake Jenner), a senior, has
matured into a muscled hunk adored by all ... including their mother, Mona
(Kyra Sedgwick), who continues to display a streak of favoritism. But it’s
clearly a chicken/egg dynamic: Is Nadine massively insecure because of her
mother’s bias, or has Mona gravitated toward Darian because his sister is such
a handful?
Nadine has survived this long
solely because of longtime BFF Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), who became an
inseparable companion back in second grade (the two girls bonding over a
caterpillar). They do everything together, Krista keenly aware of — and willing
to sympathize with — Nadine’s anxiety and lack of confidence.
