Kelly Fremon Craig directs Hailee Steinfeld, Blake Jenner and Woody Harrelson in this teen drama which is wry and raw.

Evocative of early Cameron Crowe, more than John Hughes, Edge of Seventeen is the best teen movie we’ve had in years. Amusing and honest, while avoiding the easier emotions, it has a constantly gripping off kilter feel. Teen lonliness in stereo. And while it manages to stay fun while going down some potentially dark roads, I found a sequence where our lead gets in a car with the wrong boy to be as gripping and threat filled as any action set piece this year. Perhaps the real reason I liked Edge of Seventeen quite so much is, that after half a decade since she shone so brightly in the Coen’s True Grit, Hailee Steinfeld finally gets juicy lead role to stretch her. She knocks it out of the park, making an often unlikeable anti-hero delightfully human.

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