DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL – The Review

“I had sex today! Holy s**t!” is the opening line of DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL, a fresh take on the teen rite of passage from director Marielle Heller, adapting an illustrated novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. 15-year old Minnie (Bel Powley), clad in her ‘Mickey Rat’ T-shirt, makes the shocking declaration in voice-over as she heads home to the apartment where she resides with her divorced mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and younger sister Gretel (Abby Wait) in hippy-infested San Francisco. The year is 1976 and Minnie’s ‘diary’ is actually a cassette tape recorder into which she confesses daily details about her affair with mom’s slacker boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). Just how Minnie happened to have her first sexual experience with the much older man is shown in flashback. Mom had suggested Monroe take Minnie to the neighborhood bar one night instead of her. What could go wrong? As Minnie and Monroe continue their affair behind Mom’s back, the young girl experiences her first feelings of love, lust, bewilderment, and other emotions she shouldn’t be having about a man old enough to be her father. Minnie wants to be a comic book artist, and is fascinated with the works of illustrators Robert Crumb and Aline Kominsky, to whom she writes fan letters. When not engaging in increasingly slutty behavior (often along with her best friend Kimmy played by Madeleine Waters), Minnie daydreams of stomping through San Francisco, towering over the city like a giant R. Crumb drawing come to life.

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL occasionally presents animation superimposed on the action. This starts out with innocent teen stuff – flowers and hearts and teddy bears, but as the film progresses and Minnie becomes increasingly preoccupied with sex (“Does anyone think about f**king as much as I do?”), the illustrations take on the more erotic and perverse characteristics of the underground comic books she treasures (penises popping out of pants – that sort of stuff). Often the use of animation to echo an emotional state is the type of precious touch that makes me roll my eyes and at first these moments do seem gimmicky. Ultimately though, the device is well-integrated, enhancing the story with a funky mix of wonder and fury that reflect Minnie’s unique personality and it totally works.

The adults in Minnie’s world are mostly self-absorbed and useless. Wiig is well-cast in a surprisingly small role as Minnie’s partying mother who’s never quite wasted enough to be blind to the clues around her concerning Monroe and her daughter. You just know the scene where Minnie walks in on mom listening to her recorded diary is coming, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating when it finally happens. Skarsgard is strong in a tricky role. Monroe is a coke-snorting, vodka-swigging statutory rapist, but the movie’s too smart to simply treat him like the skeevy perv that he is. Minnie loves Monroe (or at least thinks she does) so he needs to be somewhat likable, horny but conflicted, a feat the actor pulls off with charm and charisma. Christopher Meloni also shines as Minnie’s pompous academic dad, but it’s the scarily talented British actress Bel Powley whose heartbreaking, star-making performance drives the film. With her wide eyes, round face, and Betty Page bangs, 23-year-old Powley is an actress perfectly suited to this role – a chameleon who seems like a child in one shot and an adult in the next. Seeking love in all the wrong places, Minnie’s dialog and journal entries are observant and funny without crossing the line into the ‘adult over-writing’ that often plagues a grown screenwriter’s version of a teen’s words.

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL an outstanding rebuke to all this summer’s recycled, effects-heavy disappointments but, despite its title, it’s not a fun movie for teens like THE DUFF or FAULT IN OUR STARS. The sex scenes are graphic and frequent, the dialog raw and uncomfortable, and for parents of teen girls, the film, though one of the year’s best, may be more than a little scary.

5 of 5 Stars

DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL opens in St. Louis August 21st exclusively at Landmark’s The Tivoli Theater