‘Edge of Seventeen’ Touches a Time and Place in Heart

“Edge of Seventeen” is set in 1984, but it is a timeless and perceptive evocation of a Midwestern gay youth’s coming of age. It was voted the audience favorite film at Outfest last year and, seen a second time, it seems even more resonant. With both compassion and detachment, writer Todd Stephens, drawing upon his own experience, and director David Moreton, backed by a dedicated cast and crew, have created a beautiful and touching film, made with love, wisdom and good humor.

Chris Stafford’s Eric is a tall, thin youth with delicately handsome features who lives with his loving parents (Stephanie McVay and John Eby) and two younger brothers in a spacious turn-of-the-century home on a tree-lined street in Sandusky, Ohio (Stephens’ actual hometown). You can’t get much more Norman Rockwell than this.

Yet when Eric and Maggie (Tina Holmes), his lifelong friend and classmate who lives nearby, take summer jobs at an amusement park restaurant, Eric becomes self-conscious and awkward as he explains to Rod (Andersen Gabrych), who’s also signed up for the summer, that Maggie is his best friend rather than his girlfriend. The sexy, bottle-blond Rod, who attends Ohio State, is an upfront gay. Rod backs off when Eric retreats, but fast-forwarding to the season’s close, he comes on strong and Eric, attracted to him from the start, responds. (Later, we learn why Rod had not bothered to pursue Eric all summer.)

What Eric swiftly learns is that sex and love do not automatically go together and that one-night stands are routine for some gays. (Visually the film is discreet, but the dialogue is, at times, decidedly blunt.) This is just the beginning of Eric’s odyssey of self-discovery, with his struggle to clarify and accept his sexual orientation accompanied by a growing need to be open about it.

“Coming of age” is an all but universally difficult phase, but “Edge of Seventeen,” more than most films, suggests how much more difficult it is for gays and lesbians, particularly in small communities, where many people either consciously or unconsciously tend to deny that homosexuality even exists. Stephens and Moreton are very clear that, while it’s worth it, there can be a price to be paid for being yourself when that means being gay and open about it. And that price can be exacted not only in your own hurt feelings and worse but also from those you love and who love you in return.

Eric starts asserting his emerging identity through his attire, his modish look and his advanced, for his community, tastes in music. He has the great fortune to have found a staunch and wise friend in Angie (Lea DeLaria, the one and only), his boss at the restaurant who, he later discovers, operates a local gay bar. Angie is a hearty lesbian, her robust, bracing sense of humor balancing the inevitable anguish of Eric’s predicament.

She is strong and supportive without being pushy; she knows well that Eric is going to have to go through his rite of passage by himself but assures him that she will be there if he needs her. DeLaria has established herself as a powerhouse talent, but she understands the effectiveness of holding back, of how a knowing glance can convey that she’s got the picture without saying a word. (One bothersome detail about Angie: How is it that she so easily serves minors? Or are those nonalcoholic beverages Eric is consuming?)

The pains that Stephens took in writing his script pays off not only in a dynamite part for an established actor like DeLaria but also for Stafford, Holmes, McVay and Gabrych, all making their screen debuts. That they also give selfless, comprehensive portrayals under the direction of Moreton, in his own feature debut, attests to the measure of commitment on the part of one and all in the making of this film.

Much is demanded of Stafford in taking us through all of Eric’s changes, but arguably even more of Holmes, whose Maggie is in love with the understandably self-absorbed Eric without him realizing it. In his lack of awareness, Eric makes tremendous demands of her capacity for understanding and loyalty, and Holmes makes Maggie, an intelligent but young and unworldly woman, quite moving in her losing battle to be equal to the challenge. McVay is also quietly powerful in her portrayal of a forthright mother disturbed by her increasingly evasive and absent son.

Considering the scope and depth of the film’s roles, it is all the more impressive that “Edge of Seventeen,” resourcefully photographed by Gina DeGirolamo, is not at all theatrical in style or tone. You know that the film had to have been made on a tight budget, but there’s never a sense of corners being cut. Strand Releasing, which is distributing “Edge of Seventeen” and is currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, confirms co-founder Marcus Hu’s philosophy: “I’ve always felt you could make films on a shoestring budget and still convey a great story.”

* Unrated. Times guidelines: language, adult themes, some love-making and some blunt sex talk.

‘Edge of Seventeen’

Chris Stafford: Eric

Lea DeLaria: Angie

Tina Holmes: Maggie

Stephanie McVay: Mom

Andersen Gabrych: Rod

A Strand Releasing presentation of a Blue Streak & Luna Pictures production. Director David Moreton. Producers Moreton and Todd Stephens. Screenplay by Stephens. Cinematographer Gina DeGirolamo. Editor Tal Ben-David. Costumes Ane Crabtree. Music Tom Bailey. Production designer Ivor Stillen. Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes.

In selected theaters.