Rage and grief are two feelings that never come to mind side by side.
Rage is a feeling that goes far beyond anger, almost like a visceral surge of heat being spread throughout your body, while grief takes a while to settle in one of its many forms and stages. Rage and grief are two parts of growing up that take a long time to come to terms with. In The Edge of Seventeen, the protagonist Nadine is stuck grieving her father’s death. Nadine, her mom, and her elder brother can’t seem to find their new footing without the presence of their father and husband. There’s a lot of weight being put on Nadine to get over it and grow up, which brought the rage and raw grief she felt to aim at.
Girlhood is a complicated experience for Nadine as it is coupled with the death of the only person she felt truly loved her, and with fallouts with her friends and her brother consistently siding with her mom every time they fight, Nadine was going through it.
Nadine’s best friend Krista and her older brother Darian start secretly dating only to be caught by Nadine at a house party; they become distant after having a huge blowout fight about it. Friendless, still distant with her mom, and more so now than ever with her brother, all Nadine had left was her teacher who wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of her world for her in a 30-minute lunch period.
I think what makes Nadine such a compelling character that instantly made me – the 15-year-old me – connect with her is how she let herself wallow in her depression, rage, and fury.
It’s a fictional work, so of course the overall goal is for her to come out on the other end being a better person, but it is very rare where you see teenage girls being written as people who are aware of how selfish they are, and how they know they need to do better yet  can’t bring themselves to do so. There are so many times in this film where I just want to scream “Oh my god, leave her alone, she’s just a girl!” This is a point a lot of people in Nadine’s life seemed to have forgotten, the lack of support and empathy from Nadine’s mom’s end created further distance and fueled the hurt Nadine was operating on.Â
This film explores the tender relationship between mother and daughter, specifically in the teenage years of coming off a huge trauma. Nadine gave her mom hell, and her mom gave it right back to her, leaving her brother to take over the mediator role their father left behind. I completely understand Nadine – every girl has had a moment where they gave everyone a hard time and couldn’t stop themselves from operating on the level of overstimulation, leading them to become a shell of the person . Nadine and her mom are truly too alike, they both have emotions they can’t put a name on, they’re both incredibly selfish people, lost the man they loved the most and they’re stuck in a state of purgatory.
The film explores girlhood and womanhood through Nadine and her mother in a way where they want the audience to take a deep sigh with Nadine’s mom every time Nadine acts selfishly. However, as a viewer, I empathize so much with Nadine as a character. To constantly be made the butt of the joke and always be considered the problem is cheating. The loss of self and place is perfectly encapsulated by Nadine’s character. Even during the final act of the film, Nadine is still a selfish person. It was ironic how she made amends with the adults in her life and yet they continued treating her as an afterthought in their lives. Which is why despite her evolution I loved how the writers kept that hint of selfishness in her as a defense mechanism when she gets hurt. Â