Marielle Heller’s directorial feature début (and Sundance-prèmiere) Diary of a Teenage Girl manages to escape the clichés and pitfalls normally associated with coming-of-age
films; instead, it paints an unabashed and intimate portrait of a young girl discovering her sexuality and all of the trappings that come with it.
Positioned in the midst of the later stages of the hippie movement in 1970s, San Francisco, the story follows 15-year-old student and aspiring cartoonist Minnie Goetze (a stunning portrayal by British actress Bel Powley, who was actually in her 20s at the time of filming but has the full, rosy cheeks of a young girl) in the wake of losing her virginity.
The film begins with a glowing shot of Minnie triumphantly saying, “I had sex today,” but quickly takes an uncomfortable turn as we learn she had it with none other than the sleazy boyfriend Monroe(a spot-on Alexander Skarsgård) of her mother, Charlotte (Kristen Wiig).
Skarsgård is 35, and Minnie is 15, but — although apparent to anybody with a hint of a moral compass — the film never explicitly states the taboo nature of their relationship beyond Monroe’s sleeping with Minnie’s mother. This neutrality on subjects some directors would otherwise inflict their judgment holds true throughout the movie, and it is partially why Heller’s film is such a success.
When — after all hell breaks loose, and Charlotte inevitably finds out about her daughter’s and Monroe’s secret affair — Minnie runs away and begins to experiment with marijuana, cocaine, and Quaaludes, the director shows the scenes for what they are, without any editorializing, and lets the audience make of them what they will.
The film also receives a boost from the charming and quirky animations of Sara Gunnarsdóttir. The illustrations are juxtaposed into the live-action frames intermittently to literalize Minnie’s butterflies when a classmate passes her a note of admiration or to depict her own personal heroine, legendary underground cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb, conversing with her while walking down a crowded San Francisco block.
Diary is required watching for males and females alike — something that, though brilliant, another Sundance-première film from 2014 couldn’t boast … looking at you, Boyhood — as the insights it provides into the forming of a sexual being are equal parts uncomfortable, brave, and universal.
Heller manages to finally get right a story directors and writers have been attempting to nail down for decades, and she does so without sensationalizing her subject. Minnie is maybe the first truly iconic character of 2015, and she’s been a long time coming.