Take The Edge of Seventeen (2016). Hailee Steinfeld’s character, Nadine, is furious when her widowed mother starts dating her fitness-obsessed boss. But the film subverts our expectations. The stepfather figure (Woody Harrelson) isn't mean; he’s just awkward. He tries too hard. He is a clumsy bull in a china shop, but his heart is in the right place. The movie respects that Nadine’s anger is real, but it also forces her—and the audience—to see the new guy as a flawed human, not a monster.
