From Juno, this film doth grow. We’ve seen them all before teenage coming-of-age films, with angst, bullies, hunks and spurned love.
No, you haven’t. Thanks to Kelly Fremon Craig who wrote and directed this film you really haven’t. She might have been influenced by John Hughes and others from these film tropes but just in this film she has overtaken them – the schmaltz has been watered down and we’re all much better for that, actors and audience.

Edge of Seventeen is a film that has been crafted and made from all those cliched, cooker cutter, Ikea build teen school drama/comedies over the years but it disrespectfully smashes them all out of the park with some force. Nadine has all the annoyingly silly problems that every teenager has but they are never shown as comedic at her expensive just at their concept, she is annoying and dislikeable but somehow see elicits your sympathy. I’ve been in a family with teenagers (they weren’t mine too) and are there more hits in this portrayal than they are misses. The comedy comes from the situations as the film is played straight and does not rely on earnest music-inspired wallowing which is much to its credit.

Hailee Steinfeld from her breakout, astoundingly brilliant, role in True Grit is back on tip top form and she must be as at every turn Woody Harrelson and Hayden Szeto scene steal in an unshowy way as soon as they turn up. Great support comes from the sparky and likable Haley Lu Richardson who plays Nadine’s sparky and likable best and only friend, Krista, and Blake Jenner as her hunky brother Darian. The reliable Kyra Sedgwick plays Nadine and Darian's lonely mother to the tee, hopefully she hasn't been in the situation but there will many others who watch this story who have been. I would have to state that the casting for this film is perfect.

Even the stock characters in this type of movie the morose and cool Nick and the awkward and nice Erwin as close to stock teen-movie characters are not quite what they would be in another movie – they are still characters you would expect to see but not a rapist and not a bumbling fool if that makes sense. Overall these were kids I recognise from days back in pre-history was a young teenager.

If the writing and the acting are top notch then it is all brought to a magnificent crescendo by the nuanced, sympathetic, annoying and endearing performance by Steinfeld who once again proves that if there is one direction she should go in her young career it is acting. She plays the role of the teenage girl who is moody to the point of belligerence, self-centred and yet blind to her real strengths to an astonishing degree – I’m guessing she’s had the real experience at some time in her life - but this type of role/character can be and has been overplayed too many times for her display to not be anything other than outstanding. The top it all off with the sardonic and gruff Woody Harrelson whose character teacher Mr. Bruner seems so disinterested and just ‘turning-his-wheels’ (you know he’s not) and you have a film that has so many plus points that it would appear churlish to try and find any negative ones.

Having said all this the film has weaker points – being infatuated with the wrong boy whilst missing the nice boy under your nose is so old it has cobwebs on it but it is still written and acted better in this film than virtually all others – the ending seems a bit too nice and neatly wrapped up but after all it is a film and finishing on a nice note is what a majority of the audience would want to see for Nadine and her compatriots - you’d have to be some sort of stone-hearted ogre to want something darker.

If this seems to be a ‘love note’ to Hailee Steinfeld and Edge of Seventeen for her performance and the film and it seems gushing and flowery I make no apologies. Any film that can make me laugh from the opening scene to end whilst telling a version of a story that is as old as cinema itself wins for me every time.

Bring on the next Hailee Steinfeld film I say. Bring on the next Kelly Fremon Craig film I say.