As a 33-year-old male, I wouldn't expect a movie about a 17-year-old female to be one that I would relate to. Surprisingly, though, I found the movie The Edge of Seventeen to be extremely relatable and enjoyable to watch.
The Edge of Seventeen is about a high school junior named Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) who is extremely awkward others and only has one true friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson). One day Krista starts dating Nadine's brother, Darian (Blake Jenner) and this causes Nadine's world to fall apart and makes her feel like she has no where else to go in life. Woody Harrelson is also in the movie, playing Mr. Bruner, one of Nadine's teachers and Kyra Sedgwick plays Nadine's mom, Mona.
What I enjoyed most about The Edge of Seventeen was that it was relatable. I've always been one to feel like a loner that has only a couple of people that I would call true friends. I've always been one that can be awkward around members of the opposite sex. I've had unexpected tragic events happen in my family life. And I've been jealous of those closest to me. These are all things that Nadine goes through during the movie and because she goes through them, just like I have, I can relate to her and feel what she is going through. While watching the movie, there were a few times where I just wanted to put my arm around Nadine and say, "Don't worry kid, it's going to be okay".
I also enjoyed most of the performances in the movie. This movie lives and dies on Hailee Steinfeld's performance. Hailee comes across as genuine and at times absolutely hilarious. There were a few scenes, especially those with Woody Harrelson, where I was wondering if they were ad-libbed. Many of the jokes would come randomly and felt organic with the scene. Woody Harrelson also surprised me with this performance. In a lot of Woody's more recent performances he is very eccentric and appears to be on numerous drugs, but in this movie he is calm and actually feels like an adult. It feels strange describing him that way, but if you watch this movie, I think you would agree. After one scene later on in the movie, I was actually wondering why Woody accepted this role because it isn't like anything I've seen him in recently. The surprise performance for me though was from Hayden Szeto, who plays Erwin, an awkward teen who has a crush on Nadine. Whenever he was on screen you knew you were going to laugh as well as say "awwww, that's so cute" from all the awkward things he would do around Nadine. Blake Jenner and Haley Lu Richardson gave okay performances. At first Blake's character wasn't given much to do besides be the typical popular jock, but towards the end of the movie he did get a little more depth. Haley's character is your standard best friend in these high school movies and isn't given too much to do, but she does a good job at it. The one performance I didn't really enjoy was Kyra Sedgwick. Her character was just mopey and sad throughout the entire movie. She never really felt like a real person. Her actions always seemed extreme and unrealistic.
Besides Kyra Sedgwick's performance, if I had to pick something I didn't like, I would have to say it would be the flow of the first half the movie. While watching the movie, something just felt off about the first half. Not all the jokes were landing and the story was just up and down. There would be some really funny jokes flying back and forth between characters and then all of a sudden a fight between either Nadine and Darian or Nadine and Krista would occur and kind of take me out of the movie. It wasn't until the movie decided to stick with one story beat and tone that I could finally get into the movie and emotionally get invested in it.
For some reason I have a hard time not trying to compare this movie to Juno. When Juno came out in 2007, I absolutely loved it. I haven't seen it in a few years so not sure how it still holds up, but I feel that it was an edgier movie with better jokes and I enjoyed the music a lot more than what is in The Edge of Seventeen.
The Edge of Seventeen ended up being way more entertaining then I thought it would be. There were numerous laugh out loud moments caused by jokes I was not expecting. I found a lot of the movie to be relatable and sweet. The performances from Hailee and Woody were worth the price of admission alone. For the me, The Edge of Seventeen doesn't reach Juno levels, but I still had a really good time and can easily recommend it.
4 out of 5 Stars
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