Smart people can do very dumb things. That’s true in the case of Nadine Franklin (Hailee Steinfeld), the not-as-wise-beyond-her-years-as-she-thinks main character in the insightful coming-of-age comedy, The Edge of Seventeen. But it’s also true in the case of the marketing executives at STX Entertainment, who allowed this movie to be released with just enough completely unnecessary four-letter words to saddle it with an R-rating, thereby denying it a large part of the audience is richly deserves.

Nadine is smart, attractive, witty, and comfortably upper middle class, yet, in a self-fulfilling prophecy, she imagines her life to be a total mess. She only has two people with whom she feels comfortable, her best friend since childhood, Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), and her history teacher, Mr. Bruner (Woody Harrelson). And, frankly, the only reason she confides in Bruner is because he eats lunch in his classroom every day and allows her to vent to him at length without throwing her out.

Unfortunately for Nadine, her circle gets cut in half when Krista spends the weekend with her and winds up getting to know Nadine’s seemingly perfect older brother, Darian (Blake Jenner), of whom Nadine has been incredibly jealous for years. Krista and Darian hit it off, a development that Nadine views as a betrayal, and she gives Krista an ultimatum. Needless to say, Krista does not want to give up her budding romance, so Nadine parts ways with her.

Now on her own as far as peer relationships are concerned, Nadine gets involved with two different boys. The first is Erwin (Hayden Szeto), a bright, witty, sensitive, genuinely nice but somewhat gawky Korean-American from an incredibly wealthy family who has a crush on her. The other is Nick (Alexander Calvert), a surly, uncommunicative, not-too-sharp but somewhat good looking guy who works in a pet store. It shouldn’t be too difficult to figure out which one is the right boyfriend material, but it’s an insight that eludes Nadine for much of the movie. Instead, while she has a good time with Erwin when they do go out as “just friends,” she just can’t see him as boyfriend material, preferring instead to put the moves on Nick, who eventually agrees to go out with her on a date.

Not surprisingly, the date doesn’t turn out well. To the film’s credit, however, it doesn’t end up as badly as it might have, since Nick, although clearly not the heartthrob Nadine imagined, is also not a deranged rapist either. Instead, he’s merely a sex-obsessed high school boy who gets the wrong idea from a girl who doesn’t realize how she’s coming across. In other words, the date from Hell is quite plausible.

The Edge of Seventeen has plenty of scenarios like that one. Nadine repeatedly makes wrong-headed, downright bad decisions, some of which are quite obvious to the audience (Darian is not the enemy Nadine perceives him to be), and others are more subtle. Writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig is a virtual novice, with only one prior screenplay to her credit, and it’s a pleasant surprise that she manages to make Nadine likeable despite her repeated missteps.

One reason that Edge of Seventeen feels real is that so many of the situations will seem very familiar to the audience. Director Craig was obviously influenced by John Hughes; this film feels very much like the sort of movie Hughes would make today. But she is clever enough to mix up the Hughes formula a bit, such as by inserting an obvious racial stereotype in the form of Erwin into the script in a role that intentionally brings to mind Long Duk Dong from Hughes’s Sixteen Candles. Then, when Nadine engages in some racial profiling that undoubtedly mirrors what some in the audience are thinking, Erwin calls her out on it.

Obviously, it would be quite easy for Nadine to be an insufferable jerk, but, Hailee Steinfeld manages to make the character sympathetically believable albeit not always very likeable. Nadine is sometimes cruel, sometimes dangerously slow (the date with Nick could easily have turned out extremely ugly instead of merely embarrassing), and often flat out wrong. The scenes in which her illusions get shot down are some of the best in the entire movie. But, as played by Steinfeld, Nadine’s errors are not a matter of malice, but simply the result of being completely oblivious to how the real world works. In other words, Nadine behaves like many of the teenagers in the audience do.

Or, I should say, as many of the teenagers who would be in the audience if The Edge of Seventeen were rated PG-13 so that youngsters who are themselves on the edge of seventeen could actually see the movie. Instead, the script includes a few too many crude words and some underage drinking (the latter actually appropriate in this particular film, the former not nearly so much). Nor will many adults be inclined to see a “high school” film, no matter how well made. As a result, The Edge of Seventeen may not find much of an audience until it is released on video.

That would be a shame, but it would be an even bigger shame if audiences old and young miss this movie entirely. It’s a very funny and extremely well-acted film (the exchanges between the exasperated Steinfeld and the deadpan Harrelson are hilarious) that signals the breakout of Hailee Steinfeld as an actress. Ever since she burst upon the scene (and garnered an Oscar nomination) in True Grit, she has followed that up with some questionable choices. Fortunately, she now has a role that’s a worthy showcase for her talents in a film that’s also a worthy showcase for a heretofore unheralded writer/director. The Edge of Seventeen isn’t simply the best (and most realistic) high school movie of this year; it’s one that will stand up to the best of John Hughes’s work.