Two uncommonly insightful coming-of-age films.
We know your watching time is limited. And the amount of things available to watch … is not. Looking for a movie? Nearly any movie ever made? It's probably streaming somewhere. That's a lot of movies. |
Below, we're suggesting two of them, the latest of our weekly double-feature recommendations. We think the movies will pair well — with each other and with you. |
Your weekly double feature: Teenage outcasts |
 | | Thora Birch and Steve Buscemi in "Ghost World."Tracy Bennett/United Artists |
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'The Edge of Seventeen' and 'Ghost World' |
Most teenage outcasts in movies are not really outcasts at all, but merely a bit more colorful than their peers, enough to stand out for mainstream audiences without alienating them with antisocial behavior. As Nadine in "The Edge of Seventeen" (2016), an uncommonly insightful coming-of-age film from the writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, Hailee Steinfeld offers the rare exception, someone who is disliked at school because she's genuinely off-putting and at times misanthropic. She has only one friend, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), and uses lunchtime to vent to her lazy, apathetic history teacher (Woody Harrelson). |
Now streaming on Netflix, "The Edge of Seventeen" feels like a throwback to John Hughes comedies like "Sixteen Candles," but it is much more grounded and soulful, with a greater willingness to allow its young heroine to make mistakes. After losing her beloved father a few years earlier to a heart attack, Nadine clashes with her image-obsessed mother (Kyra Sedgwick) and an older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner), whom she considers to be a vapid do-gooder. When Krista falls into a relationship with her Darian, Nadine views it as an unforgivable betrayal and lashes out in every direction. That our sympathies stick with Nadine regardless is a testament to the emotional honesty of Craig's screenplay and to Steinfeld's prickly charisma. |
Many of the major elements of "The Edge of Seventeen" — a misfit heroine with a single parent she resents and a best friend who recedes from her — are also present in Terry Zwigoff's "Ghost World" (2001), but with a considerably darker edge. Adapted from Daniel Clowes's comic books, the film aligns itself with Enid (Thora Birch), a sarcastic outsider who likes to trade withering barbs with Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), her only friend, but now has to think about life after graduation. As Rebecca drifts toward conformity, Enid starts hanging out with a middle-aged record collector (Steve Buscemi) who's like an older version of herself, which she should take less as inspiration than cautionary tale. Through hilarious and sometimes poignant vignettes, the film lays out a hard path for would-be iconoclasts. SCOTT TOBIAS |
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