The Edge Of Seventeen is a film which comes both written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig and it stars Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson, Haley Lu Richardson and Blake Jenner. The Edge Of Seventeen follows the story of Nadine who is a high school girl that’s struggling with a lot of life issues and has also recently discovered that her best friend is dating her brother.
When I first saw the trailers for The Edge Of Seventeen I wasn’t really quite sure that this movie was for me. While I don’t mind watching films that are for people in their teens and have seen every single season of Degrassi, I wasn’t really in the mood for what The Edge Of Seventeen looked to be offering me at the cinema this week. But once I got in there and started watching the film, which I had actually kind of low expectations for despite its nice cast, I found that I really loved this one.
The dialogue is my favourite part of this film and I don’t believe that any of the trailers really do a great job with selling The Edge Of Seventeen, but I found it to be actually quite a well written and well directed film. I’ve never seen anything from director Kelly Fremon Craig before, but I found her to be quite good. As both the writer and director for the film, I believe she did a pretty good job with this one.
Nadine is a very interesting one to watch and she’s well played by Hailee Steinfeld. Actually for Hailee, I think this is probably her best work. She has popped up in some films before such as 3 Days To Kill and Ender’s Game, but this is her biggest role so far I believe and I wouldn’t mind seeing more from this actress in the future. As a character, Nadine is a complex one, as much as a teenage girl can be I suppose and we watch her struggle with a variety of things such as her school work, her friendships, her family and her relationships and it’s all very dramatic at times, but also pretty funny at other times.
The rest of the cast all do a great job. Woody Harrelson has been great lately in most things he’s put out whether it be on TV or at the cinema, in this he plays Nadine’s teacher and kind of a father figure I suppose and I loved his character and also his performance was well done. The other two main actors are Haley Lu Richardson and Blake Jenner who are both unknown to me completely, but in the film for their parts they were decent enough with their performances.
There’s not much else to say about this film, it’s pretty much what you would expect from a film in the teen genre/drama category of things. But as something in that area of films, I thought it was quite well done and the film’s director Kelly Fremon Craig did a great job with both the writing and the pacing of the film, it was an interesting experience. The actors are all great, but it’s Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Herrelson that really stand out. The film’s characters are well enough written and are well developed which is great and should hold the audience’s interest throughout its run time. The Edge Of Seventeen is a fun, thrilling, dramatic and intriguing film to watch and one of the better ones releasing this January at the cinema.
