The Edge of Seventeen Review

Before November 2016, The Edge of Seventeen was a classic 1980’s Stevie Nicks song and a 1990’s coming of age film about a gay Ohio teenage boy. Now the title has a third new meaning and association for a new generation in a film about a suburban teenage girl dealing with the loss of the only stable relationships she has. And with such a classic title, such a relatable premise and an R rating, it begs a couple of questions: What kind of movie is this, and who is it geared toward?

In regard to the type of movie it is, that was anyone’s guess in the beginning. If you are anything like me in terms of demographics, you’ve probably seen plenty of vague ten second advertisements for it on TV and online. And if you are anything like me in terms of opinion, you probably weren’t impressed with any of them. The trailer seems referential and confusing. The main character is shown donning an 80’s style men’s ski jacket and colorful high-top shoes, but also is seen for a split second wearing her hair in a 70’s do and seeming to indirectly reference Judy Blume’s classic Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, but also directly references Napoleon Dynamite’s Pedro while “Work this Body” by the modern indie band Walk The Moon plays in the background. It’s quite a lot to take in.

Then you get the barrage of comments from the critics that this is the new classic teen movie, similar to the feeling of The Breakfast Club and Pretty in Pink. When seeing these comparisons made, I was highly confused as to whether this was a modern day version of those kinds of films, or trying to give a nod to 80’s nostalgia like Guardians of the Galaxy did, or if it was actually a nostalgic period piece like Stranger Things. To put things in perspective, the answer is that the film takes place in modern times. 2014 to be exact. The setting of the film, the characters, and the clothing could have made the plot vague enough to place at any point between the 1980s to present day. Yet the film every once in a while has to remind us that it takes place in modern times, with 2014 calendars being pointed to, usage of social networking and also characters listening to modern music artists like Miike Snow and Phantogram. It’s obvious that the film wants to give you the same classic feeling that those old John Hughes films did, without alienating this generation or making it seem like modern teenagers and their Twitter machines and VR headsets are just so off in their own little world that they can’t have normal teenage problems, like so many assume.

So now that we understand what the vibe of this movie is supposed to be, what is the plot of this movie and who is going to enjoy it? Right now, I am a 24-year old professional living in San Francisco, who was once an angsty suburban teenage girl. It seems obvious that I should want to see this firm; however, I wasn’t at all enticed by advertisements due to the vague trailers I’d been exposed to, and I wasn’t being convinced by the critics’ words and Rotten Tomato ratings, because I had just gotten done being incredibly disappointed by another recent release,  Arrival, which received extremely favorable ratings as well. What intrigued me to see The Edge of Seventeen was that elusive R rating. And sure, teenagers who are 17, 18 and 19 can technically watch R rated films, but it does somehow hinder those in their younger teens from being able to see this movie unaccompanied by an adult. It made me wonder if this movie was geared toward someone like me. So I investigated. And that lead me to watch what I thought was a wonderfully charming and respectful teen movie that I hope one day becomes a classic.

With an accurate description from CinemaBlend of being “The best movie in theaters no one’s seeing,” The Edge of Seventeen snuck its way into select theaters and is sort of hanging out and waiting for people to get into the seats. And seeing that no one can escape the advertisements, I believe that the plot of the story is what is making people hesitant. The reason why the plot is kept vague in the teaser trailers is because this film’s plot is not what makes the movie great. In this day in age, to have original content become a box office smash and something everyone talks about, you have to have daring characters and a plot with high stakes. You must have audiences on the edge of their seats while watching your trailer, and must wow them with unforgettable twists and turns when they see the actual film. But just as the term “most unique” can’t actually exist grammatically, I believe it also doesn’t exist in terms of movie plots. A unique film cannot be forced with crazy plot devices. At least not since Psycho, Citizen Kane and The Sixth Sense already took all of the best twists. Funny enough, The Edge of Seventeen is the anti-Arrival. Arrival gave me luke-warm characters with half-baked motivations throughout a mysterious plot, and threw in a major twist at the end. But for a movie-goer like me, who is personally more interested in character development, it made me feel nothing when the twist was revealed because I didn’t care about what happened to the characters either way. Whereas The Edge of Seventeen was extremely relatable and delved deeply into the complexities of the main character, making me care about her even though the consequences were in a way trivial in the grand scheme of things.

But facts are facts: In a world of short attention spans, $15 movie ticket prices and many blockbusters being released around the holidays, it is hard to sell a film where the plot is that the main character is a teenage girl whose only friend starts dating her brother, making her relationships with her friend and her family very vulnerable. With no car chases, no casino heists, and no one who was unaware that they were dead the entire movie. But that’s what makes the film great to its targeted audience, which I would specify as anybody who has ever felt hopeless. While I would say it would help to have ever been an awkward teenager or a suburbanite, I would not say that you have to be anything like the main character to enjoy this film. You just have to be someone who’s ever felt a lack of hope. And that is why this movie is considered to be a potential classic by those who watch it.

The whole reason why any teen classic becomes highly regarded by people of all ages is because everyone can relate to the simple feelings portrayed in those films. Everyone knows the feeling of realizing that they’re not so different from the “strange” people around them, and thus The Breakfast Club is a classic. Everyone knows that feeling of desperation to fit in with the people around you, and thus Mean Girls is extremely popular. And everyone knows what it’s like to feel hopeless at times, so hopefully they will rent and download The Edge of Seventeen in the near future.

The film handles the topic well. When the character is desperate for her life to be different and admits her own self-hatred, the film delicately scoffs at the idea that suicide is ever the answer to anyone’s problems, but doesn’t try to invalidate the feelings of a depressed or confused person (and no I didn’t give away any spoilers. If you watch the extended trailer you’ll see that her being suicidal is not seriously considered by the plot.)  It does a solid job of putting the audience into the limited mindset that a teenager has, which is that they can only see a few feet in front of them when it comes to what they find that life can bring. This film doesn’t insult the character or depressed young people by having the lesson be “Shut up because there are worse things going on in the world” or “Calm down because this won’t matter one day when you’re in college or working.” The lesson of this film was that you need to learn to like yourself now, regardless of what stage in your life you’re in.  Because everyone is going to be a mess at some point, and the world cannot go round if we all decide that the only thing that will make us want to live is getting away from people or places that bother us.

With all that I’ve said, believe it or not, I still haven’t given away anything major in the movie. Because like I said, the plot is not what makes this movie. It’s the character development. The joy you’d get from this movie lies within the jokes and simple relatable moments. Or if you’re not in the mood to watch it in the near future, maybe watch it in a decade or two. If it truly is a classic the way I think it is, it’ll still hold up whenever you decide to check it out.