If you’re lucky, you get one great teacher; one teacher who steps into your life and makes a difference that lasts the rest of your days. In some cases, you may have to actively stalk that teacher to engage his burnt out, underpaid, overworked, teenager-warped soul….but that’s just what you gotta do then! The Edge of Seventeen was a hilarious, wonderfully acted film from 2016 that got absolutely no recognition, which is a shame, because Hailee Steinfeld was Oscar-worthy and Woody Harrelson got his best comedic role since Cheers.
Steinfeld’s dramatic, over-the-top Nadine is stymied when she runs into the jaded stonewall that is her history teacher, Mr. Bruner (Harrelson), constantly harrassing him for advice and counsel against his will, especially holding him hostage during his lunch break. The relationship that they build over the course of the film is touching and always darkly funny, never more so when Nadine’s hysterical threat to jump in front of the largest moving vehicle she can find is calmly met by a withering dueling suicidal rant from Bruner. Everyone in high school should be so lucky to have a Mr. Bruner.
