67
Metascore
20 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- While Edge Of Seventeen was marketed largely toward gay audiences, it’ll resonate with anyone who remembers the awkwardness and elation of their first sexual experiences, because it captures those experiences better and more honestly than practically any other film.
- 80The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenThe movie gets the music, the clothes and the tone of the teen-age culture of that era exactly right.
- 80VarietyDennis HarveyVarietyDennis HarveyUnpretentious, funny and touching, Edge of Seventeen rates as a quintessential Amerindie sleeper.
- 80Washington PostDesson ThomsonWashington PostDesson ThomsonObviously, this movie isn't for everyone. But if anyone can take a crossover audience through the gay terrain, it's Stafford. As Eric, his utter heart-stopping anticipation when he sits alone in a car with Rod, is palpable. Through his eyes, you can feel so much at stake here, not the least of which is his innocence.
- 67Austin ChronicleSteve DavisAustin ChronicleSteve DavisThe film's cast, all unknowns with the exception of comic/Broadway performer DeLaria, acquit themselves well, with the skinny, innocent-eyed Stafford a credible Candide navigating a new world of experience. His grounded performance charters Eric's stumbling progress to a sense of self that befits Edge of Seventeen: without apology.
- 50Chicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumChicago ReaderJonathan RosenbaumApart from McVay and Lea DeLaria (as a lesbian who befriends and advises the hero), the actors mainly come across as movie types rather than characters, and despite the obvious sincerity of the project, deja vu seems written into the conception.
- 50Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertChicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertMaggie, Eric's mother, and Angie the manager are the most fully realized characters in the movie, which doesn't offer a single positively drawn male homosexual.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannSan Francisco ChronicleEdward GuthmannEdge of Seventeen is sweet and affectionate, but it also has "first effort" stamped all over it. Director David Moreton never made a feature before this, and has yet to learn how to compose a shot or block his actors.
- 50San Francisco ExaminerG. Allen JohnsonSan Francisco ExaminerG. Allen JohnsonThe "coming out" genre in gay and lesbian films is really getting stale - the plots are as by-the-numbers as a Bruce Willis action flick - and Edge of Seventeen is hampered by not only predictability but by its shoestring budget (a coup, however, was getting Thompson Twins composer Tom Baily to do the score).