An open letter to Kelly Fremon Craig about her outstanding new all-ages crowd-pleaser

Are you there, Kelly Fremon Craig?

It's me, a middle-aged man and a fan of your movies about teenagers.

Okay, that probably sounds unsettling, like maybe someone should put me on a watchlist. And I’m well-aware that I, as a 50-something male, am not the target audience for your films about teenage girls.

But as I teach creative writing to students just out of high school, students who are working through their own teen experiences in writing, I care very much about this genre. And your film The Edge of Seventeen remains for me, seven years after I first saw it, one of the gold-standard films about teenagers and families of teenagers. That movie stands strong alongside Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird as an exceptional film in its genre for how it demonstrates such close attention to — and thus love for — young humans in uncertain and embarrassing stages of development. I still remember Nadine (the always-impressive Hailee Steinfeld) and her exasperation when she discovers that her brother is dating her best friend Krista (my first encounter with the radiant Haley Lu Richardson!) While that premise struck me as unremarkable in the genre of coming-of-age comedies, I was surprised and delighted by how quickly I found myself caring for your characters, by the depth and nuance of the performances; and by Woody Harrelson’s understated work (which remains my favorite big screen performance of his).

So I was there on this opening weekend to see your adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved story about Margaret.