Pun Salad

I thought Hailee Steinfeld was great in the Hawkeye miniseries. (I don't report on miniseries here, but I liked it a lot.) And I thought she was pretty good in that True Grit remake back in 2011. So when this showed up free-to-me on Netflix, I decided to bite.

It's IMDB genre-icized as Comedy/Drama. Accurate! It's funny in spots, but it's not one of those teen movie raunchfests. Teenager Nadine (Ms. Steinfeld) is very smart, very funny, and very pretty. This should be a recipe for high school success, but she's damaged goods. She's burdened by a flibbertigibbet mother (Kyra Sedgwick), the traumatic death of her father, a can-do-no-wrong handsome jock brother.

Fortunately, she has a steadfast friend, Krista. But (oh oh) Krista gets involved with Nadine's brother, causing that friendship to self-destruct. (Nadine's dysfunctional that way.) There's also a supportive teacher (Woody Harrelson, great). And a geeky just-friends-for-now, Erwin. And bad boy Nick, who's the object of Nadine's fantasies.

Bottom line: a decent movie to watch. R-rated (for "sexual content, language and some drinking - all involving teens"), but nothing I was too embarrassed to watch with Mrs. Salad. Ms. Steinfeld, to repeat, is outstanding.