The Edge Of Seventeen wants you to believe that teen pop star and movie sensation Hailee Steinfeld could be an awkward, average-looking loser, which is about as believable as Mila Kunis as a frumpy mom in Bad Moms. The trailer introduces Steinfeld’s Nadine Byrd, a frustrated teen whose shitty life is exacerbated by the fact that Blake Jenner (Glee) is her brother. To make matters even worse, her best friend (Recovery Road’s Haley Lu Richardson) is banging him on the low. But wait, it gets worse! Nadine’s mom might look like a cool mom at first, because she’s played by Kyra freakin’ Sedgwick. But nope, she’s just another mom who doesn’t get it. So Nadine turns to the one person who might understand her: her blunt, wry teacher played by Woody Harrelson, who matches her teen angst with undervalued teacher angst.
The trailer has a John Hughes feel, but with some more modern twists: When Nadine pens an overlong and sexually explicit proposition on her phone to her crush, she accidentally hits “send” instead of “delete.” Rookie move, Nadine! Not only that, but the message is a travesty for including too many run-on sentences, according to Woody Harrelson. Nothing gets by that guy. Originally titled Besties, The Edge Of Seventeen was written and directed by Kelly Fremon. We will assume that her screenwriting debut, the vacuous Alexis Bledel-starring Post Grad, was a fluke, because The Edge Of Seventeen looks much more promising and much more alive. It’s scheduled to release on September 30.