The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Insecurity is something every individual faces.  This is something that appears to be a universal truth.  While it is a problem that faces millions it’s especially prevalent in the life of Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) in the film The Diary of a Teenage Girl.  The film takes place in 1975 where Minnie is celebrating that she just had sex for the first time and how the experienced has changed her.  It’s an interestingly direct start to the film.  As the film progresses we see Minnie develop a sexual relationship with her mother’s boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård).  The relationship with Monroe is Minnie’s link to adulthood and what that world looks and sounds like.  Minnie chronicles her affair with Monroe in a series of tape recordings that discuss her inner thoughts as the relationship progresses.  It’s a clever device that shows both the character’s naiveté and her creativity which is the cornerstone of why this film doesn’t fall completely flat in its more intense and disturbing moments.

What made this film captivating for me is that while the protagonists actions aren’t relatable but her emotions while being in those situations are something that can be felt universally as she navigates herself through a more adult world.  The film succeeds majorly on one other front which is the theme of evolution and regression.  Throughout the film, Charlotte Goetze (Kristen Wiig) is an absent mother and by the film’s conclusion she seems to accept the responsibility of truly caring for her children and being a part of their lives.  In contrast to that, Monroe regresses to his teenage years with Minnie throwing any consequences of his actions aside until he is found out.  I find it fascinating that two people who are supposed to have grown up and known responsibility are the ones who take the least accountability for their actions.  To Minnie’s credit, she at the very least is attempting to understand and value how the world around her functions which will make audiences root for her success above all else.

The film’s main weakness is that the consequences for all of the actions of the film are extremely minor.  Charlotte does not really become a more attentive mother to Minnie as a result of her daughter’s sexual exploits.  Monroe is not bared from seeing Minnie after her mother finally acknowledges her suspicions of the affair.  If anything, Charlotte is more offended that Monroe choose Minnie over her.  While being offended is understandable, this takes the film from being firmly grounded to feeling like a complete work of fiction despite being based on a novel.  The false reality took me out of Minnie’s story and journey which would have made the rather poignant ending a bit more triumphant.

The performances in this film are stellar.  The lead Bel Powley has a deeply earnest quality to her performance that makes Minnie come across as honest and believable.  Kristen Wiig mostly known for her comedic exploits on Saturday Night Live gives an effort in this film that can only be described as stern and sincere.  You can tell she is basing her performance off of something she may have seen or experienced in her own past and it results in her character feeling lived in.  The weakest performance in the film comes from Alexander Skarsgård.  He comes across as every cheesy pedophile you’ve ever seen on any episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.  The only thing that saves his performance from being a deplorable attempt at acting is that there are definitely a few small moments when you can see how his character of Monroe regresses in maturity as he continues to bond and spend time with Minnie.

The set design of this film by Susan Alegria is to be particularly commended.  She puts the audience in the decade but also provides small touches of decoration so that people who grew up in that time period immediately have things to connect to.  This level of detail goes right down to the style of bath tubs used at that time or tape recorders used to take notes.  In short, it’s a feast for the eyes and impeccable attention to detail.

While I appreciated the journey The Diary of a Teenage Girl took me on I feel as though the level of insecurity within Minnie will take audiences out of the film rather than engross them and allow them to learn more about how children progress though their puberty, sexual or otherwise.  Rent this one.