Movies: The Diary Of A Teenage Girl

(Drivebycuriosity) - Minnie, who is 15, has sex with the boyfriend of her mother. The movie "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" ignores the legal aspects of this relationship, instead the film focuses on the feelings of the girl (imdb). Minnie is smart and sexual very curios, but also very frustrated and neglected, because nature didn`t bless her with beauty. She tries to compensate her minority complexes, to escape the tristesse of her white trash home and to satisfy her hunger for life - with a vigorous sex life (this is a spoiler free blog. You can find a synopsis here wikipedia).

The movie, set in San Francisco´s liberal hippie climate in the 1970th, is an entertaining psychological study about coming of age and the issues of a teenage girls. Director Marielle Heller, who also wrote the script,  wasn`t shy of sex scenes and nudity, but the amorous parts were well dosed and necessary for the plot. Cinematographer Brandon Trost shot the scenes in friendly pastell shades. I was impressed that the  images of today`s San Francisco suited well to represent the city from the 1970s - it seems that the town didn´t change much since then. The producer also use a lot animated cartoons, a reminder that the film is based on a graphic novel, which made the film more agile and entertaining.

Bel Powley, born 1992, incarnated the fledging young woman perfectly and reflected her insecurity and curiosity accurately. Kristen Wiig, as the alcoholic and careless white trash mother and Alexander Skarsgård, as a parasitic sexual predator, were her congenial partners.

"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is another proof that Hollywood can do much more than just produce summer blockbusters for the college crowd.