Foreign Film Critics: "The Edge of Growth"

"Growing Edge" is arguably the best young girls coming-of-age film after Mean Girls.

Nadine is an awkward high school girl, her loving father died four years ago, her magnetically incompatible mother (Kyra Sedgwick) is busy dating again, her brother Darian (Blake Jenner) is a megaloman, her mother is always partial to her brother, Nadine feels like an unloved loser, and worse, her only friend, Krista (Haley Lu). Richardson actually started dating Darian, and Nadine felt betrayed and even more self-pity and anger.

The protagonist nadine anxiously says to herself to herself in the mirror, "Don't be so weird ~ don't be so weird ~", which can almost sum up her predicament. The root of all her problems comes from all kinds of insecurities – appearance, socializing, love, surviving in the shadow of her super-popular brother, her mother's eccentricity... Various factors have caused her to lack self-confidence, become her most fearsome enemy, and love to fight herself more than others. The next step in "hating herself" is to hate everyone and everything, so nadine has become a typical teenager who causes headaches for many parents - she is both a snake and a bully. I just wanted to sympathize with her, and the next second I felt that she deserved it.

In the face of such a difficult teenager, the people around her have developed their own ways of coping. Father was the one who knew Nadine best and how to soothe her with mao, and the two of them had a certain kind of spiritual understanding that Nadine's mother could never reach. However, after the death of his father, no one could take that role. The mother was immersed in her own problems, unable to take care of herself, in no mood or able to take care of her eccentric daughter who was inferior to her son in her eyes. Brother Darian constantly felt Nadine's disdain for him, and certainly didn't want to ignore her. After being with Darian, her friend Krista discovers that Nadine has become an incomprehensible monster and has to fight a cold war. Erwin (played by Hayden Szeto), a classmate who has a good feeling for Nadine, is also an awkward character himself, and although he wants to take the relationship further, he does not even know how to take the first step. The only way to find out the details and cure this girl is the history teacher Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrison), who loves to wake up the self-centered nadine, but also leaves room for her to understand the truth herself, Bruner speaks very directly and dares to sour her, because he knows that nadine's power is more than she thinks.

So how does nadine see the world? She thinks she's old-fashioned and sophisticated, so she hates people because "I see you all through." But as the plot continues to develop, it gradually reveals the harsh truth — the others are not at all what Nadine thought. Teachers, mothers, brothers, boys with a crush on her... There is another side that Nadine did not discover, if this girl is not so self-centered, everything is focused on "me, me, me", you can see it. The teacher is not the lonely middle-aged man she directly assumes, the mother needs help far more than she thinks, the brother pays a lot for the family, and Erwin is not just an embarrassing Asian with a tiger mother. Everyone has their own baggage and dilemmas, and even if they are perfect in the eyes of outsiders, there are unknown difficulties. Nadine claimed to have an old soul, but she was so tender that she knew just by looking at her judgment.

The film specially arranges the contrast of the mother's life experience: nadine, as a young girl, thinks that she is the most miserable and sad among the teenagers in the world; her mother, as an adult who has experienced vicissitudes, thinks that everyone is very miserable, but they are all very good at pretending. Teenagers often have very dramatic reactions because they don't see enough of the world, and "Growing Edge" successfully captures such features, and often lets the heroines stand alone in the camera, highlighting the social isolation and the collapse of the inner small universe.

"The Edge of Growth" has also made many small breakthroughs in the framework of juvenile growth films, which are quite innovative. For example, this film is not like most ya (young adult) films, will introduce various other small groups on campus, because those are not important here - anyway, nadine is almost isolated from the world, in its own circle of one person; other similar films often have "dress up beautiful to meet the sweetheart" dressing montage, this film is able to make a very different angle and style, such as let the protagonist awkwardly spray perfume to the private part, spraying and feeling as if the hand is too heavy, Without trace, nadine's nervousness and youthfulness in the face of love are pointed out; the Asian character Erwin is well written, compared to the Asian characters in the 80s "Sixteen Candles", Erwin has evolved a lot, he looks awkward and not cool at first, but he knows more deeply, and will see his deep and even "cool" side, as well as the loneliness of studying alone, this is a flesh-and-blood person, not a clown made up of various stereotypes.

In addition to the above advantages, what I appreciate most about "Growing Edge" is that it does not take a purely "optimistic and enterprising" attitude, but is willing to face the reality of teenagers and listen to the voice of darkness. The film's director and screenwriter Kelly Fremon Craig, with a draft script, approached the production company of legendary producer James L. Brooks, Grace Films, who suggested that she first spend her time studying the seventeen-year-old girl and then pondering the script, and it is said that the later final draft is very different from the first draft. Perhaps it is such a solid fieldwork that makes "Growing Edge" touch the real worries and fears of many people in their adolescence, afraid that they will always be this awkward person, with an unpleasant appearance, an annoying head, and doomed to be alone for a lifetime. "The Edge of Growth" also reminds young people in this period that perhaps all you need is to stop paying attention to yourself — stop looking at the pimples on your face, a few hairs upturned, puffy calves, rounded abdomen, look around, look at others, try to understand that the world is very big, men and women and children have their own struggles, and society has bigger problems than your thick eyebrows. As for the rest, let the time give the answer.