Sandusky, Ohio, 1984: Eric Hunter is a Eurythmics-obsessed, musically driven teenager coming to terms with his sexual identity.

When Eric and his best friend, Maggie, accept summer jobs in food service at the local amusement park, they befriend their lesbian manager, Angie, and gay college student, Rod.

After beginning his senior year of high school, Eric starts to change up his appearance by letting Maggie dye the top half of his hair blonde, and wearing edgier and more effeminate clothes.

This raises eyebrows with his loving parents, but Eric learns that his mom is going to get a part-time job at a local movie multiplex to help send him to study music in New York.

Later that night, Eric ventures out to the local gay disco "The Universal", a hopping joint run by none other than his old boss, Angie, who tells him not to worry about what everyone else thinks.

While waiting to meet up with Maggie one night, Eric clicks with a local college student named Jonathan.

When Eric goes home, he is ambushed by his mother, Bonnie, about his recent behavior and appearance, and says that people are getting the wrong idea about him.

[2] Stephen Holden of The New York Times wrote, "The insecurities and turbulent desires of adolescence have rarely been portrayed more faithfully on screen than in Edge of Seventeen the latest and most poignant in a recent spate of teen-age male coming-out-of-the-closet dramas.