Q

How The Edge of Seventeen updates the coming-of-age story

Writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig takes on the coming-of-age story in her new film, The Age of Seventeen.
Kelly Fremon Craig wrote and directed the new film, The Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld. (STX Productions)

Seventeen is "a particularly heightened age where everything feels just enormous," says writer and director, Kelly Fremon Craig. 

Craig's new film The Edge of Seventeen, about a girl who navigates the high and lows of being a teenager, aims to capture that overwhelming feeling of growing up. It's something she's learned from watching classics like The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles

Kelly Fremon Craig's new film The Edge of Seventeen stars Hailee Steinfeld, Woody Harrelson and Kyra Sedgwick. (Murray Close/STX Productions)

Through research, Craig expected to find a lot of differences between the lives of today's teenagers and her own experience. Instead she found that "the core things are just the same, the same issues, the same insecurities, the same worry of being judged and trying to find your place."

WEB EXTRA | Watch the trailer for The Edge of Seventeen below.