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| Kelly Fremon Craig and James L. Brooks on the shoot for The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films. |
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| James L. Brooks and Kelly Fremon Craig at the TIFF Closing Night Gala of The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films |
Fremon Craig and Brooks recall the moment in which they
realised that the debut filmmaker was the right person to direct The Edge of Seventeen. “I was ready to
make a pitch for myself and Jim said ‘The voice is very specific to you, so I
think you should direct it.’ And I was just shocked and asked him to put that
in writing,” laughs Fremon Craig about making the jump to direct her own
script.
One can’t help but notice the value in closing the Festival
by spotlighting such a strong new voice at a time when the industry is
overwhelmingly asking for more opportunities for underrepresented talents,
particularly female filmmakers. Part of this responsibility falls on established
producers like Brooks, who has nurtured directors like Noah Baumbach and
Cameron Crowe, to take a risk on talents who traditionally don’t get the job in
the old boys club of Hollywood.
For Brooks, encouraging Fremon Craig to take the director’s
seat marks a step in his own ever-growing journey as a filmmaker. “This is one
of the great learning curves I’ve seen. Kelly impressed me as a person
initially,” Brooks explains. “When we were going over the first draft and I was
agonising over my own involvement, she turned around and said, ‘Nobody will
ever work harder than me.’ It was unusual, it was an instinct in her, and it
was the truth. It was the truth with an enormous amount of talent that I’m not
sure she really had any inkling of herself at the time.”
The combination of the veteran producer and the
up-and-coming director creates a dynamic duo as The Edge of Seventeen delivers one of the year’s best comedies
thanks to the mix of Brooks’ experience and Fremon Craig’s fresh vision. “Every
day felt like an awesome time on set just having them both there tag-teaming it,”
reflects Blake Jenner (Everybody Wants Some!!), who plays Darian, Nadine’s popular brother. “Kelly is the driving
force. This is her script and Jim was there supporting her with a helping hand
and everyone felt very well taken care of with both of them tag-teaming on set.”
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| Blake Jenner and Haley Lu Richardson star in The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films. |
“It didn’t feel like I was watching them learn things,” adds
co-star Haley Lu Richardson, who plays Krista, Nadine’s BFF. “Kelly was very
confident, very specific, and she has everything worked out in her head
already. She’s positive and energetic. She really knew what she’s doing. She’s
always smiling. It didn’t feel like it was something new for her.”
Fremon Craig elaborates upon Brooks’s mentorship by recalling
his suggestion to take a journalistic approach and interview high school
students to fine-tune the behaviour and vernacular of teens for her screenplay. “I’ll never write another film without doing an intense amount of research
because that’s what happened between the first draft and the second draft,”
reflects Fremon Craig. “I was talking with a bunch of teenagers across the
states for hours and hours, sitting with them, going to high schools, and being
a fly on the wall. So many beautiful little details come out of those
experiences that you can’t make up. It also reinforces a responsibility to get
it right.”
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| Kelly Fremon Craig Courtesy VVS Films |
The Edge of Seventeen
draws fair comparisons to the John Hughes comedies of the 1980s in this regard,
and the continuity in movieland high schools seems appropriate. Brooks adds
that one marvel of Craig’s research is seeing how little changes between the
high school experiences of each generation. Craig agrees and shares Brooks’
sentiment that this universal experience is comforting, saying, “There’s
something about that that takes the sting out of your own painful experience.”
Brooks adds to Craig’s take on the film by revisiting a
standout scene in which Nadine’s mother, Mona, (Kyra Sedgwick) writes and
revises a text message to her daughter. “In movies,” the producer explains,
“they talk about older people as older than twenty-five, and so with ‘older
people’ seeing themselves and revisiting themselves, that is like having a
resonant experience. There’s a scene that I think is so great when the mother
figures out her text to her daughter and the world changes with her figuring
that out.” It resonates with anyone, really, who’s ever navigated the fine art
of text messaging, just like the film shows with a poorly timed (and totally
awkward) instant message that Nadine sends to her crush instead of hitting the
‘delete’ button. (We’ve all been there.😱)
Moments like this Mona’s text help The Edge of Seventeen stand out at the end of a Festival crammed
with 300 films and in multiplexes serving cookie cutter characters hanging over
from summer movies. The film challenges audiences with its difficult (if
relatable) protagonist alongside a cast of fully fleshed-out secondary
characters. “Even the supporting roles were written well,” Richardson observes
on Fremon Craig’s screenplay. “They weren’t half-assed.”
Jenner agrees and adds that audiences approaching The Edge of Seventeen expecting to find
typical high school clichés like The Jock, The Geek, The Goth, and The Preppy
Cheerleader won’t find them. “These characters all have a brand,” Jenner
explains. “It was fun to take that and strip it away, and make them out to be
real people.”
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| Hailee Steinfeld and Haley Lu Richardson in The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films. |
Equal parts writing, directing, and acting make great
characters out of few scenes and even fewer lines. “When I first read the
script,” adds Richardson, “I thought I was more like Nadine than Krista in real
life with my friendships. I think Krista was such a rock to Nadine at the
beginning. I think that selflessness is what a real friendship is.” Like
writing, interpreting the character means relating to her, which is tricky
unless the filmmaker gives the actor some substance.
Perhaps the best example of The Edge of Seventeen breaking the mould with a character comes in
Nadine’s awkward friend and not-so-secret admirer Erwin, played by
Vancouver-born newcomer Hayden Szeto. Szeto’s a scene-stealer, partly because
Erwin isn’t the math club loving poindexter one usually sees with high-school-set
Asian characters. But much of Erwin’s charm comes from Szeto’s fun,
freewheeling energy that complements Steinfeld’s moody storm cloud. “The thing
with Erwin is taking the classic nerd and not playing him like the geeky
awkward character,” explains Szeto. Erwin is Szeto’s first major role in a
feature film, so his status as the newbie let Fremon Craig play the mentor role
herself.
“They really knew how to talk to actors and get the most out
of us,” Szeto says of the Brooks/Fremon Craig team. “There were days where I
knew I was sucking and just felt it, but they were really nice about it,
saying, ‘Try it like this.’
“Oh, you mean suck less?” he mocks in recollection. “It’s the
way they say it.” The comment draws an improvised game of putting the wrong emphasis on the wrong syllable as Szeto, Richardson, and Jenner take turns
directing the art of sucking less and less.
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| Hailee Steinfeld and Hayden Szeto in The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films. |
“For Hayden,” Fremon Craig adds, offering the perspective
from the director’s seat, “the important thing was getting out of his was and
giving him license to play. He’s a great improviser, so you just give him room
to play. I would just constantly tell him, ‘Play. Have fun. Do Your Thing. Try
stuff. Be bold.’”
“Kelly and I had some conversations about how many layers we
could add to him—how he feels, his inner dialogue and all that,” says Szeto.
“She would tell me, ‘Do it like that, but sexier.’ It’s a good thing having a
female director telling you what is sexier and what is not.” Awkward as it
sounds, this direction is pretty great if one considers that virtually no
comedies or films whatsoever let Asian characters play the hunk.
Szeto recalls one scene featuring Nadine and Erwin at a pool
where the geek takes off his shirt before his crush and reveals a side that she
doesn’t expect. “Can you pull it over your head?” he recalls Fremon Craig’s direction
on how to suck less and avoid making Erwin and Nadine’s first moment a pool
party à la Showgirls. “More sex, suck
less. That really took the nerd character to another, level making him sexy,” laughs
Szeto.
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| Hailee Steinfeld and Woody Harrelson in The Edge of Seventeen. Courtesy VVS Films. |
Brooks adds that the secret ingredient to the energy in the
film is star Hailee Steinfeld. “One of the assets that everybody had in the
film was Hailee,” he says. “She was masterful and didn’t know how generous she
was being. And where Hayden went, she went with him. I think it’s one of the
best performances that I’ve been around.”
The Edge of Seventeen
sees Nadine grow under the guidance of her history teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson)
and one can’t help but notice that the same student/mentor relationship in the
easy rapport between Brooks and Fremon Craig both in the relaxed chemistry of
the film. The director adds that some early advice from Brooks took The Edge of Seventeen to another level
by entrusting her with a responsibility that all good filmmakers need to
confront. “One of the first things he said to me was ‘The most important thing
you’ve got to figure out, Kelly, is what you want to say about life in this
film.’ It was the first time that a producer had said something like that to me
that was actually life altering,” says Craig. “I will never approach anything I
write again without hearing that that question about what is churning in me
with the need to explore.” As audiences walk down the hallways of their
adolescence, they inevitably leave the theatre embracing that same challenge.
The Edge of Seventeen opens in theatres Friday, Nov. 18 from VVS
Films.
Read the Cinemablographer review of The Edge of Seventeen here.