This is another of those high school movies that I might not be able to recommend seeing more than once… but it’s just interesting enough to warrant writing about.
I won’t be giving everything away but I’ll go into most of the key points.
It has a pretty good soundtrack- some songs from the mid 2010s I remember hearing in other contexts. But it’s mildly disappointing that the Stevie Nicks song serving as this movie’s namesake doesn’t make a single appearance.
Also- I’ve always interpreted that song as a more dramatic version of “I am 16 going on 17” so the fact the main character is already 17 makes the title a double liar… unless the whole point is that she’s 17 and a little rough around the edges.
The whole genre of teen angst high school is a little over and done by this point… but this is probably one of the more honest looks at what that means.
The protagonist Nadine, played really well by Hailee Steinfeld, develop a huge dislike for her more outgoing classmates (and all things popular) at a young age. The types of people who attract success anywhere they try and her brother is major representation of that. Between the two of them, he always got the better grades and more popularity whereas she was outcast and bullied for being the opposite.
She finds solace from this in her new best friend and for their whole lives, they’d been two peas in a pod.
But things change when her friend starts dating her brother and through him, gets into better social circles and she feels left behind. Plus betrayed because they used to share a mutual dislike of him. As far as big brothers go, he’s not the most obnoxious (definitely not to the point of Bill Paxton in weird science) but it’s easy to be put off by some of his actions.
I can understand her frustration to a point. I know I’ve lost friends or felt left out because they got into social circles I didn’t feel welcome to join. Or I just wasn’t welcome at all. But there are points where I’ll admit she takes her anger about this betrayal a little too far— how long can you hold a grudge until you get over it and move on?
Then there’s the fact she was daddy’s little girl and he died of a heart attack a few years earlier and the family is still navigating the grief of that loss. (There was one funny punchline where she uses her dad’s death as an excuse for not doing her homework and her teacher says that excuse expired after the first year… it was 4 years ago).
But as much as she feels like the world is against her, she comes to realize she’s not alone and just maybe she’d been wrong about the people in her life because she didn’t consider their perspective.
It sort of blew my mind later on when her brother came out saying he works so hard to be perfect to keep their family together. Their mom works hard to provide for them and she and Nadine fight so much. He feels compelled to go to a local college when he could easily have made Ivy League to make sure he’s there in case he’s needed.
And just maybe, he likes hanging out with her friend because she helps keep him grounded like she had in their friendship.
Most high school movies have that one teacher character. This one was tailor made for woody harrelson and his wry sense of humor. In fact, he makes this whole movie. Not just because he matches her wit tit for tat but he’s extremely supportive when stuff in her life spirals out and she feels she has no other confidants.
She also makes a new friend who takes part in an indie film festival at the end of the movie… won’t spoil his animated short but it is super cute. Then when she comes over to his place, she learns his family is actually pretty wealthy yet he’s very unassuming about it. Not crazy rich Asian rich (although he is Korean) but definitely richer than most of her classmates. My jaw dropped when I saw the house— but I’m a sucker for a good Victorian style house.
Nadine is very outspoken and gets in trouble a few times because of this. One moment particularly when her lack of impulse control gets the better of her. She’s not the first teenager to make this mistake but that doesn’t make it any less cringe worthy to see how it plays out.
She talks a few times through the movie how she’d fantasized about this one classmate who works at a pet store. Then she texts all these errant thoughts to him (a lot of weird sexual stuff I always wonder how teenagers know about them cuz I sure as hell didn’t at that age) by accident and he’s interested.
Then she awkwardly realizes as it’s happening that she didn’t really mean what she said and he’s super bent out of shape for the mixed signals. It sort of reminded me of a situation I got into in college where a guy I met on Facebook asked if I’d ever kissed and suggested when we watch American idol together as planned we try. Somehow that got misinterpreted and he wanted to turn the entire show into a make-out session. To his credit he backed off when he saw how uncomfortable I was about it… but yeah… be careful what you say to the opposite sex online. Don’t put out the wrong message so they don’t get the wrong idea.
Luckily she had her teacher for an exit strategy and she gets to learn a bit more about his life while spending him at his house to decompress from everything.
I’ll say it again- Woody Harrelson totally makes this movie.
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