20 Great Movies About Outcasts Everybody Needs To See

While the initial beats of this film feel like a typical coming-of-age teen comedy, there's a much sharper edge to "The Edge of Seventeen." Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld) is a high school junior who faces a crisis when her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) starts dating her older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner) — causing a greater rift in her family that had been building since her father's death. Now feeling like her only friend and escape has been taken away from her, Nadine is close to breaking and more alone than ever.

Nadine is a relatable portrait of a messy and flawed teen, and despite some unlikable qualities, her honesty is what endears us to her. The film finds its heart in the surprising and frank conversations Nadine shares with her teacher, Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson), who's often visibly annoyed at having to deal with Nadine's latest crisis. The pair have a wonderful, offbeat dynamic, and in the scenes they share together, we experience a truly refreshing and heartwarming teacher-student friendship.

As the title suggests, this period of adolescence is a turbulent and confusing time, and Nadine epitomizes this. Through her conversations with Mr. Bruner — and her tentative friendship with the thoughtful Erwin (Hayden Szeto) — we start to see that many of the reasons why Nadine feels like an outcast could be because she hasn't resolved some of the trauma from her past, and the film explores this in a sensitive, melancholic, and frequently hilarious way.