Steinfeld shines in Edge of Seventeen
The Edge of Seventeen (M, 104 mins) Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig
Hailee Steinfeld first turned up on our movie screens as the astonishingly self-assured and hyper-articulate Maddie in the Coen Brothers’ superb True Grit remake.
Steinfeld was 13 at the time of shooting. She went on to pick up numerous awards and is probably the youngest person in history who could fairly claim to have been robbed of an Oscar.
In The Edge of Seventeen – Kelly Fremon Craig’s confident and assured debut feature – Steinfeld is 17-year-old Nadine. She is a smart, troubled and complex kid. Four years earlier, Nadine’s beloved dad died of a heart attack while driving her home from a visit to a burger bar. Leaving Nadine and her older brother Darian to be raised by her increasingly brittle and vulnerable mother (an initially thankless and shrill role for Kyra Sedgwick, but one that pays off beautifully in the final reel)
The only real ‘‘big name’’ here is Woody Harrelson, who steps in with a perfectly weighted and profoundly unshowy turn as the one teacher Nadine knows she can turn to. Harrelson, as usual, is a delight to watch at work. The only real constant in Nadine’s life is her friendship with bestie Krista (Hayley Lu Richardson).
So when Krista – after being Nadine’s friend for 10 years – starts dating Darian, Nadine finds herself feeling betrayed, friendless and angry at the world. A couple of wildly tumultuous months ensue.
Put like that, The Edge of Seventeen could be any one of many teen-orientated rom-drams. But this one is truly a bit special. First time writer/director FremonCraig has caught the rhythms and the tempests of teenage life perfectly. There is no sense here of an adult imagining for projecting their own memories or fantasies of adolescenece onto these characters.
They are just credible, likeable and utterly believable creations. And so, the drama and the situations they find themselves in remain real, effective and hugely watchable. The tone veers to the dark, but is never portentous or striving for cheap shock value. Real-life situations are never mined for saccharine or melodrama.
And when things turn out OK in the end, which they do, we never feel we have watched something artificial or manipulative.
The Edge of Seventeen is a great script, simply and effectively produced, acted out by a group of smart, likeable and skillful actors.
- Graeme Tuckett The Edge of Seventeen is currently screening in New Zealand cinemas.