The Diary of a Teenage Girl, film review: All the pain and all the gain of brave and reckless youth

There's plenty of sex in this adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel, but this is no blandly didactic morality tale
Ringing changes: Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) explores her new-found sexuality and keeps an incendiary diary of her experiences
Vertigo Films
Guy Lodge7 August 2015

“Strong sex” is how the BBFC justified an 18 certificate for Marielle Heller’s fearlessly frank and funny coming-of-age drama — to the consternation of those who assumed, radically enough, that a film titled The Diary of a Teenage Girl might be of interest to teenage girls.

There’s certainly sex — and plenty of it — in this adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel. Its “strength”, however, is in the eye of the beholder. Some equivalently aged girls might identify knowingly with the erotic explorations of 15-year-old Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley, last seen as the young Princess Margaret in A Royal Night Out), while others may have a hard time concealing their shock. Both groups should see it. What the BBFC’s wording inadvertently alludes to is the film’s sharp consciousness of sexuality as power, as an identity-shaping force. No viewer will come away underestimating its gravity.

Minnie certainly doesn’t, even after growing up in the free-love mecca of San Francisco. After losing her virginity one hazy afternoon in 1976, she’s sufficiently moved by the experience to begin an ongoing audio journal of her carnal education, committing one perilously vulnerable confession after another to cassette tape.

Her diary is more incendiary than most — the man who took her virginity, after all, is studly thirty-something Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), the deadbeat boyfriend of Minnie’s mum, Charlotte (Kristen Wiig), who’s something of an overgrown teen herself. It’s supposed to be a one-time aberration, though Minnie and Monroe can’t keep themselves from secretly repeating the mistake over and over.

At the same time, with the naive swagger of the newly liberated, she hooks up with a range of other partners, from gauche male classmates to a worldly young lesbian. That Minnie’s heading for a fall is plain to everyone but her, of course, but this is no blandly didactic morality tale — it’s what she gains from the fall that’s the point.

All adolescent self-discovery blends recklessly poor decisions with productively brave ones, even if the difference isn’t quite clear at the time, and Heller doesn’t condemn her smart, ingenuous protagonist for any of hers. Inventively visualised and electrified by Powley’s vibrant star turn, this is mature, spirited, emotionally generous filmmaking that understands under-18s far better than innumerable insipid young adult romances. Here’s hoping they defy authority and seek it out.

Cert 18, 102 mins

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