Set in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, first-time director Marielle Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl looks at life from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old girl growing up absurd in an environment that provides little to no emotional support or guidance. Written by the director and based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, the film was the winner of the Grand Prix (Generation 14plus) at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Minnie, in a remarkable performance by British actress Bel Powley ("A Royal Night Out"), is a confused and troubled teenager who lives with her divorced mother Charlotte (Kristin Wiig, "Welcome to Me") and her younger sister Gretel (Abby Wait).It is an environment that seems to be modeled after media notions of the San Francisco hip culture of the sixties, though, in reality, there was very little counter-culture left in San Francisco by the mid-seventies. Powley captures Minnie's innocence and personal appeal as well as her more manipulative moments, and manages to portray her as likable in a sea of unsympathetic characters. A talented comic book artist, Minnie speaks into a tape recorder in her room to journal her quest for a meaningful relationship, but the tapes are filled with self doubt and feelings of isolation that threaten to morph into self-loathing.The film opens when Minnie proudly announces that she's just had sex for the first time. Her sex partner, however, is her mother's 35-year-old boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard, "The Giver"), who freely enters into the relationship with the teenager, mindless of any ethical or legal concerns. Minnie is definitely not an innocent victim and Monroe is not a predator, but both act like emotional adolescents who are caught up in the moment and seem powerless to extricate themselves. Minnie's continued sexual relationship with Monroe enhances her self esteem and she has a stake in keeping it going regardless of the danger that her mother will find out.The only real friend she has is Kimmie (Madeleine Waters) who brags of many sexual conquests herself and Minnie feels comfortable in confiding in her details about her affair with Monroe and other experiments that include different types of relationships with both men and women involving drugs and prostitution. Unfortunately, Minnie keeps coming back to Monroe who has by now become a sad character. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an honest film that presents the characters and situations as they are without judgment or evaluation.Yet while it does not judge its characters, it closes its eyes to morally dubious behavior, not commenting on Charlotte's outrageous invasion of her daughter's privacy when she listens to her private tape recordings which reveal the extent of her relationship with Monroe, or addressing the question of a parent's responsibility to provide emotional support for a an emotionally fragile teenager, regardless of the environment in which they are living.While Minnie and Monroe go through the motions of self-reflection, ultimately there is little substance to their quest for self understanding. There is only an emptiness inside that the film touches on but hardly explores and leaves us with a sense of unfulfillment. Minnie tells her friend that Monroe has gone to participate in the EST Training in Sacramento which she describes as a self-improvement seminar. That is the last we hear of it, however, and we never see any positive results from Monroe's experience or that it in any way had touched his life. The only results that Monroe reports are that during the weekend he was arrested for drunk driving.The message of the film is about the importance of loving yourself before you can love others and Minnie takes a long road towards that goal but female empowerment should not only be about sexual awakening but about integrity, taking responsibility for your life, awakening to the beauty and mystery of life, becoming involved in things larger than yourself. Given the emotional vacuum in which Minnie lives, there is nothing to indicate that any lessons have been learned. Ultimately, this is a film that displays the forms of self-awareness but lacks its substance.

Well, the first thing is this film is not for everyone. Because the contents were too strong for being a teen theme. That means it is good for the grown ups to watch. The story of a 15 year old girl in the 70s living with her mother and small sister. It begins when her sexual urges takes off, her first with a middle aged man. So she documents everything and besides, with her close friend's support, they together explore even more options. Being a minor and yet her real life to commence, what she plans for the future determines the remaining developments.The performance by Bel Powley was amazing. She was the perfect choice to play that role despite she's older than the role. There were many nudes and sex scenes, but was not that strong, especially when compared with the similar themes of the present era films. The pace had lots of ups and downs, but the progression was on the right path which actually saved the film.The story was just fine, no complication to understand and also not easy to explain, but in a short, it was a teenage girl's sexual exploration. Everybody gets into that stage of life, but only few courageously opts a path to accomplish. And for some, it is an open opportunity that makes them to get there than intentionally make that move. I felt the film was well adapted from its book and directed by a newcomer, Surely worth a watch, but again I'm saying that it is not for everyone.7/10

Because I'm studying screenplay writing, I recently read the screenplay for The Diary of a Teenage Girl. I randomly chose it, and I'm happy to say, I enjoyed watching the film way more than I enjoyed reading it. Perhaps because of some of the visuals, particularly the animated ones, actually seeing them gave the film another dimension which was more difficult to experience when reading the script.So I was pleasantly surprised as I watched it, and during the six or so hours since watching it, the images of it have been repeating on me, like tastes from a spicy dinner.It was an intense film and of the several reviews I've just read, only one of them mentioned what I thought was so intense about it, which was what was behind the main character's obsession with sex and sexuality, i.e., her need and desire to be loved. I supposed I related personally to her character, for I, too, at one time was a needy teenage girl, who found escape and/or solace (from having a very narcissistic mother) in boys and sex, not to mention drugs. Happily the story as presented here (in the film and I assume, the book) has hope: Minnie learns to love herself and find joy through her art. She doesn't self destruct or do really harmful self-injurious things as she could have, so the film, for me, has a bittersweet quality.I also found the portrayal of the time (1976) well done, though I did take issue with Kirsten Wiig's hairstyle. Otherwise, everything else was realistic and very relatable.

My, how times have changed. Here is fifteen year old high school student, Bel Powley, coming of age in 1970s San Francisco. It's La Dolce Vita, according to this movie. I mean, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Powley's mother, Kristen Wiig, has a handsome young boyfriend, Alexander Skarsgård. Powley teases him and finally seduces him, and they get it on until Mom finds out about the affair. There are a few minutes given over to deep loneliness and despair. Powley almost is entrapped in a heroin joint by a lesbian but pulls herself away in the nick of time, as they say, and finally returns to Mom at home.Throughout these incidents -- involving not just Skarsgard but a handsome class mate and two men who pay for BJs in a toilet -- Powley has nothing on her mind but sex. Not marriage and a home. Not yet. Her values are entirely organoleptic. She is obsessed with being touched and banged. The F bomb is liberally distributed throughout the story. This is very much different from my own childhood years in a working-class suburb of Newark, New Jersey, a generation or so earlier. It was easy to coast through Hillside High School without ever discovering what a female breast felt like. Where were the Bel Powley's when we needed them, hey? O tempora, or mores! It isn't a Lifetime Movie though, not a soap opera, and it can hardly be called a domestic drama. The device of having Powley narrate the story into a tape recorder is a bit of a cliché but that's okay. It helps link the episodes together and Powley reads well enough. She's cast nearly perfectly. Not very pretty but not quite homely either, and shapeless rather than chubby. Her voice has an endearing crack when she tries to shout. The character is at that break point in the life course, a liminal state in which one enters adulthood without quite having outgrown childhood. For kicks, Powley and her girl friend jump up and down on the bed and sing songs. Between BJs, that is.But then all the performances are better than might be expected. As the uncertain mother on the hedonic treadmill, Krisen Wiig registers as savvy. As the seduced, Skarsgard ought to know better. Powley is fifteen. Groucho Marx used to refer to girls that age as San Quentin Quail, and Errol Flynn wound up in a scandalous affair leading to his trial as a rapist for doing what Skarsgars does to Powley. Except, of course, with Flynn being what he was, there were two teenage girls, not one.Yet this isn't a trite movie, with Skarsgard as the Humbert Humbert of the piece. Skarsgard's character is impulsive but has adult sensibilities and is generous with his compassion. He gives a fine, thoughtful performance. The direction too is whimsical but very engaging. There are episodes that are done as cartoons resembling Crumb's. The camera doesn't wobble. The cuts don't take place until the heft of the scene is absorbed by the viewer.The city is a scenic place, a tourist mecca, but it isn't milked for its glamor. And its atmosphere is nicely captured by the director, Marielle Heller. I was living there at the time this story takes place and loved its go-to-hell raffishness. Pot plants grew in the windows. Somebody was running for mayor -- a garishly made-up transvestite dressed in a nun's habit but with a tiny skirt and fishnet stockings. Name on the ballot: Sister Boom Boom.