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Friday, May 19, 2017

The Edge of Seventeen (2017)

This film is largely cut from the tried and true teen drama tradition that has been going strong since The Breakfast Club made it's debut.  This one is stronger in that there is more grit, more real life trauma, but the same neat draw up at the end.
Hailee Steinfeld, who garnered an Oscar nomination for her role in the Coen brother's version of True Grit, further reveals her versatility as a whip-smart yet socially moronic teenager named Nadine. Her one and only friend since childhood is the perky and slightly better-adjusted Krista. Her older brother, Darian is the golden boy who can do no wrong. Her widowed mother, Mona (played by Kyra Sedwick), works hard to support the family as a frazzled mom.  The whole family is surviving the sudden death of the father, and no one is completely adjusting well to those roles.
Nadine is the typical smart kid who sees everything through narcissistic eyes, falls for the bad boy, but has a really decent kid who likes her for who she is.  She makes her brother's life unbearable, and then he makes hers just as challenging because he starts to seriously date her best friend.  There is a lot of material to work with here, and if you like the genre, this is a good one.  It also has Woody Harrelson as a not creepy teacher who actually helps Nadine to cope.

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