FILM: The Diary of a Teenage Girl @ East London Film Festival

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a coming of age drama based on the novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, which is loosely based on Gloeckner’s own life. We jump right in with Minnie (Bel Powley) as she announces the loss of her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgaard).

Minnie and Monroe carry out a sordid affair for the duration of the film, keeping it a secret from her mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and her younger half-sister Gretel (Abby Wait). Minnie is just fifteen years old and is played wonderfully by Powley, whose bright face and doe eyes convey the sweetness and perhaps naivety of the character.

Although it might sound creepy for a grown man to have an affair with his girlfriend’s fifteen year old daughter, the backdrop of 1976 San Francisco provides a distance to the story which makes the relationship seem less shocking. Morally, of course, it is completely wrong.

I found it refreshing to watch a film that so openly and honestly discusses the desires of female sexuality. Minnie is not afraid to embrace her sexual yearnings for Monroe and others. She even engages in a sexual act for money alongside her friend Kimmie (although they agree later to never do it again).

The film is darkly funny in several places, particularly when Minnie first suggests she wants Monroe to “fuck her”. There are party scenes involving Charlotte and her older friends, drinking and taking drugs with Minnie (in a sense condoning her daughter’s lifestyle) which also provide moments of bleak humour.

Kristen Wiig is fantastic in a much less obviously comedic role. She plays the laid-back parent who identifies with feminism but perhaps doesn’t fully engage with what that actually means. Wiig conveys the desperation of single parenthood and the desire to remain a young party animal rather than fully embracing her role as a parent.

The relationship between Monroe and Minnie would perhaps be heralded and celebrated if the ages were reversed. As we see in a number of teen movies, American Pie for example, the triumph of the young boy to ‘score’ with a cougar is something to strive for, not hide.

That’s not to say that The Diary of a Teenage Girl condemns Minnie’s actions because it doesn’t, at least not explicitly: the betrayal of her mother is seen as the major taboo, rather than her sleeping with a man almost twice her age.

Similarly to Carey Mulligan in An Education, Bel Powley brings elegance and bags of charm to the role; showing Minnie’s own compliance with the relationship. Let’s hope this film does for her what An Education did for Mulligan and this is the big break for Powley that she deserves.

I really enjoyed this film. It is an excellent symbiosis of the coming of age comedy and a drama about relationships and feminine desire.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl will be on general release in the UK on August 7th 2015.

Niki Alexandrou
@nikialexandrou

Niki Alexandrou

Niki Alexandrou

Niki Alexandrou

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