'The Edge of Seventeen' Red-Band Trailer: Coming of Age Is Profanely Perilous

It’s not easy to be a teen, as countless movies have reminded us in ways both depressing and hilarious. That lesson will be brought home one more time in profanely funny fashion this fall when Hailee Steinfeld attempts to navigate romance and friendship — and the hazards of texting — in The Edge of Seventeen, which has just released its first, decidedly R-rated, red-band trailer (watch the NSFW clip above).

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In writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig’s film, Steinfeld plays Nadine, a high-schooler who fears that she’s an ugly duckling who resembles Pedro from Napoleon Dynamite, and who can’t stand that her brother (Everybody Wants Some!!’s Blake Jenner) is a good-looking and popular stud. Those feelings of inadequacy (tinged with jealousy) are further complicated when her best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) decides to start up a sexual relationship with Nadine’s bro — leading her to mope, pout, and have suicidal thoughts that she feels comfortable discussing with her teacher (Woody Harrelson), a drolly sarcastic instructor who serves as the perfect foil for her dramatic freak-out.

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As coming-of-age stories go, The Edge of Seventeen looks like it’ll be following in the recent footsteps of The Duff, delivering a smart (and smart-mouthed) look at the complications, conflicts, and crisis of an outsider girl’s attempts to figure out who she is and what she wants in the years preceding college. It also seems like an ideal lead role for Steinfeld, who on the basis of the film’s debut promo, will get plenty of opportunities to exhibit the same sort of feisty attitude that marked her breakout role in the Coen brothers’ True Grit.

The Edge of Seventeen premieres in theaters on Sept. 30.

Hailee Steinfeld flashback: The cast of ‘True Grit’ talks to Yahoo: