The Diary of a Teenage Girl

A YA companion piece to Lars von Trier's latest. Mostly noteworthy for an impressive performance by Bel Powley.

Diary doesn't adhere to normal coming-of-age conventions, and, from what I've seen of other reviews, is prone to making audiences uncomfortable because of its absence of condescending morality. The film's ability to be empowering and illuminating despite these set backs is impressive.

Interesting & sometimes exciting look into the mind of a teenage girl. Bel Powley gives a excellent & convincing performance as the awkward, insecure 15 year old girl who craves love & attention. Alexander Skarsgard was especially good as her love interest & mother's boyfriend. Kristen Wiig was also very satisfying. The writing was good. Video white balance was off, perhaps to look old. The dialog & music was very good. The story is quite scandalous, a bit raunchy but felt genuine.

A story of abuse and exploitation, but the movie never depicts Minnie as only a victim. She's more than that. She's human. She's an unapologetic participant. She frequently uses the illicitness of her affair to her own advantage. She's empowered, but she's also full of contradictions and insecurities. Like the broken adults she's surrounded by, she longs for love and external validation; lifelong desires nobody stops looking for.

Oh wow! A film about a teenaged girl's sexuality that doesn't involve heavy-handed moralizing. This film does a great job of balancing the imaginative versus reality. The cartoony graphic novel origins of this film give the visuals a rich texture.

It hovers in this weird, should-be-impossible middle ground between overly twee and Junoesque and at the very same time rather grim and depressing, like eating too much ice cream until you feel sick, but the ice cream is broccoli flavored. Its saving grace is Bel Powley in the lead role, who is very watchable and almost makes me feel for her character even as the film itself seems to dare me not to. Attractive cinematography for a teen film.

Sara Gunnarsdottir's hand-drew animations are wonderful.

Refreshingly candid and non-judgmental film that nicely captures the feel of 70s San Francisco spinning out of control in a drug-fueled haze. It features an extraordinary performance by Bel Powley in a part that is unusually complex in comparison to most of what's available for female actors in American films.

So spirited in all it's teen sexuality! Then it drops the ball the second half of the film which become a drag. At least it was unashamed of it's sexual exploration being mostly a positive about it's attitude.

I admire that this film has no qualms about its material, and that everything is shown through the perspective of the main character. Because everything makes sense in her head, it should make sense in our head. It's all very honest, revealing, warm. Bel Powley is great and Alexander Skarsgard is great. It's kinda nice to see something so free of judgment.

I'm familiar with Phoebe Gloeckner's comics and this movie was as good a translation as I was expecting. Bel Powley really breathes life into this teenage girl (Minnie), and Alexander Skarsgard definitely has acting chops and a certain amount of bravado to take on the roll. The director never gets sanctimonious with the subject matter which is refreshingly deferential to a 21st century audience.

One of those films that has all the elements of something I would like with all the individual pieces being top notch, but it just didn't connect with me. Felt slow and I was never invested in the characters. It's not you, film, it's me.

A good coming-of-age story, if an atypical one. Impressively non-judgmental, given the fairly fucked up content, and funny too. However, a lot of the style that carried over from the graphic novel feels vastly out of place here, and the movie never completely feels like it comes together.

It focuses on an out-of-control 15 year-old girl, her irresponsible mother, and her mother's perv boyfriend (she's only supposed to be 15 and looks it). You'd think these people would have learned how screwed up they are long before they did. Characters who see the train wreck coming but are unable to veer off, usually draw audiences, but apparently not this one.

15-year-old Minnie (Bel Powley) begins exploring her sexuality, primarily with her mother's boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård); she comes to realize just how much growing up she still has to do. Charming, spirited coming-of-age take, with a winning performance from Powley and an effectively pathetic one from Skarsgård. Marielle Heller's direction is often vibrant, making great use of animation; her script has many bright moments but never quite coheres into greatness. Still worth a look.

"I don't need no man: the movie."

Funny and horrifying. Both at the same time.

One could say that the city of San Francisco itself was a character that was complicit in the abuse of a teenage girl

This is a coming-of-age story that is *supposed* to make you feel extremely uncomfortable. The POV is very clearly against relationships where there is a huge imbalance of power and experience. Minnie craves touch and affection and love, which she is so not getting from her mother, so she conflates that with the start of her sexual experimentations. Bel Powley is fantastic. Other reviews of this film irk me. How they underline that the film is not 'judgmental'. Urgh. That's not the point.

This film is so refreshingly honest. The psych art was also a treat.

Bel Powley's wonderfully expressive face is something to see.

Again one of those films, where you expect bad things to eventually happen and then they happen. Wonder when America see its first sex-positive coming of age movie, propably ever. But disturbing enough to make impact.

I felt like this film was a bad fit for me in many ways - wrong era, wrong gender, wrong music, wrong sexual/emotional perspective. I wasn't very engrossed. Also I was expecting some sort of comedy. Apparently it comes from a comic or something. Reminded me of this Swedish film "Call Girl". About a young teen going off the deep end. I can see why the story would appeal to some people, but not why the film was recommended to me as one of the highlights of the year.

If you ever wondered how a once innocent young girl might turn out to be a stripper, a porn actress, or worse, just watch this movie. It's a mature, genuine coming-of-age story that illustrates the impact that individual decisions, as well as individual role models, can have on impressionable young people. I love how none of the characters are depicted as explicitly "bad". Even Skarsgard's character, who is, in fact, a pretty immoral person, isn't overtly nasty and villainous.

29.08.2016 Lev

Unexpectedly unique. Surprising

Bel Powley (Minnie) offers a stellar performance in this movie - as well as Alexander Skarsgard (Monroe). An incredible directorial debut from Marielle Heller who also wrote the screenplay for the film. Although it is very much a coming-of-age film, it bucks convention and pushes the audience to think about what it actually means to grow up.

#16#, rw3, story, ratings, Kristen.W

i hope way less people are being as stupid as this lil bitch

I liked the ways in which it was different from other films of this type, but it still ended up being pretty conventional. It's like a more extreme Thirteen, or a way less extreme Nymphomaniac. I found myself bored for a lot of it, to be honest, though there were parts of the screenplay I liked a lot. It was dirty and cynical, but not in an interesting or endearing way. Skarsgård was pretty good. It's probably worth watching if you like the look of it, but it didn't do much for me.

i could do without the rudimentary empowerment arc complete with cheeseball slogans, and the animated flourishes were mostly unimaginative quirk, and i kept inevitably comparing it to the similar and vastly superior THE UNSPEAKABLE ACT which everyone should watch right the fuck now, and i can't say i really believed in or understood the characters... though i did appreciate the avoidance of stock characterisation and the provocative refusal to judge. plus powley has a hell of an expressive face.

yapmaya çalıştığı şey takdir edilesi ama başaramıyor.

Yeah... I walked into the wrong room at the theatre...