Misleading title is misleading

Being someone who usually likes movies of this genre, I was surprised to find myself bemused with The Edge of Seventeen despite it's great cast and performances.

Primarily, I think that while the title and the tagline are amazing by themselves, they are very far removed from the actual content in the movie. For a movie titled Edge of Seventeen, having a tagline "You're only young once... is it over yet?", which together very strongly suggest that the movie in question will be one which will deal with the trials of entering adulthood--of a time when innocence fades away and responsibilities and the world settle in-- it did a particularly unsatisfying job. You could argue that I should have watched the trailer to see how the movie was going to be, but I would then have to contend that the reason trailers exist are to create excitement and to publicise; if I am already aware of the movie and am excited I do not have to see the trailer, and can watch the actual movie itself.

While that, I think, was my largest complaint with the movie, there were other things I found jarringly out of place or forced. Barring Woody Harrelson the movie was achingly short of laughs, with several of jokes falling short; the one scene between Nadine and Krista at the cafe/restaurant early on in the movie being an example. It seemed to be gunning for a "Scott Pilgrim" type of comedy with Nadine hurling her shoe at the wall, and her indifferently telling the overly baffled couple at the neighbouring table that "it's cool", which Krista acknowledges as being a weird thing to do, and Nadine sipping her coke noisily, in quick succession; which weirdly made it seem that the characters were being humorous for the sake of laughs, with Nadine as a character, acting upset as opposed to actually being upset, the latter of which she supposedly was.

This and other scenes of similar nature made the proceedings seem almost mechanical and forced, with plot points and characters fitting an itinerary- the beautiful, humorous loner girl who is paradoxically socially awkward, the shy and nerdy Asian dude, the punk American dude who looks cool but is shallow on the inside, and so on and so forth.

I wish they'd titled the movie something less dramatic, because as it stands the movie is too random and too haphazard to take on the intriguing sense of wonder that it's title creates. There was so much potential with that premise but it was squandered for a lazy story and intentionally quirky-stereotype characters.