The Edge of Seventeen: Once Upon a Late Bloomer

Hailee Steinfeld. I remember the first time I saw her on screen, and it was in Ender’s Game. How she’s grown the past few years.

Nadine (Steinfeld) is an “old soul” according to her. She likes everything old, and she cannot relate to people her age. Since she was young, she was always jealous of her older brother Darian (Blake Jenner), and the only person who could understand her, her father, died one night after they grabbed dinner to go when she was 13.

When her best friend of a decade Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her brother, Nadine feels betrayed. She grows angry and bitter, and starts spiralling down like most teenagers would at that stage of life.

Her crush Nick (Alexander Calvert), a jerk who doesn’t even know she exists, finally asks her out only to have sex with her. Nadine who only wants to get to know him better and probably, hopefully get a kiss, leaves in anger and gets heartbroken.

Erwin Kim (Hayden Szeto), a nerdy classmate who becomes Nadine’s good friend, likes her, but she rejects him every chance she got. Despite Erwin being good looking, smart, and wealthy, Nadine confesses to seeing a “really, really old man” in him.

Nadine’s teacher, Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), is the only person Nadine can talk to about her frustration. He lets her come to him whenever she’s done something stupid or needs a listener, and becomes her moral support when things are going out of control.

This is one hilarious coming of age comedy, with an outstanding performance by Steinfeld. She sold the character, and she brought Nadine to life.

It’s a harmless movie, really, with one dimensional characters whose depths got discovered later in the story, but we got to see things exactly the way Nadine does.

We’re only revealed information that the story wants Nadine to see. We don’t get to see more or less, only what we can judge for Nadine’s sake.

And I enjoyed this ride.

Pace isn’t bad. I liked the order of things happening in the film, and nothing was going too fast or too slow. I might have a problem with characterization of the other characters, but since this was all happening in Nadine’s world, I didn’t see a big deal out of it.

Everyone delivered well, even though at times I felt like some things were over exaggerated and out of place. But then again, weren’t we all like Nadine when we were 17?

It’s believable, funny, and entertaining. It’s got its own charms that won’t make you feel like you just wasted some time watching this movie. Because you’ll like it.

The Edge of Seventeen is a solid 8/10 from me. Would I recommend? Hell yes.

Go watch this movie with some of your friends. It’ll be a fun treat.