The Diary of a Teenage Girl has already caused controversy, having earned itself a certificate 18 despite being about a 15 year old girl and when it is released in cinemas tomorrow I expect it will kick up yet more controversy.
The 18 certificate is a mistake because this film ought to be made as accessible as possible. I’d happily argue for it to be added to the sex ed curriculum – as long as there was a mandatory discussion about the age of consent, sexual abuse, contraception and cultural verisimilitude after. Because it is possibly one of the most accurate portrayals of that mysterious creature ‘the teenage girl’ I have ever seen.
Set in 1970’s San Francisco this film is based on the graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures by Phoebe Gloeckner. Let’s start with the cast. 23 year old Bel Powley plays Minnie Goetze, the teenage girl whose diary we are privy to. Her mother, Charlotte is played by Kristen Wiig, a twice divorced librarian negotiating the new opportunities for a woman in the era of free love. Alexander Skarsgård plays Monroe, Charlotte’s boyfriend (though they aren’t “possessive”) and Minnie’s lover while Chris Meloni is Minnie’s ex step-dad and intellect Pascal (I spent much of the film thinking ‘where do I know you from?’ then I remembered: he’s the guy who humps the fridge in Wet Hot American Summer).
It is a very real looking cast, sure they are all attractive but it’s plausible to think that Kristen Wiig might have a 15 year old daughter. Which is refreshing in a world where actresses who hit 40 can expect to attend castings for the role of Ben Affleck’s mother. Or grandmother.
The film tracks Minnie’s account of how she came to lose her virginity to her mother’s boyfriend and the affair that follows. A tale of sex, drugs and cassette tape, while one would hope the sex, abuse and drug taking in this film is not ‘par for the course’ for teenage girls this film encapsulates the brutality, the absolute binaries of love and hate and the rampant yet simultaneously repressed sexuality that being a teenage girl is.
It also acknowledges that for some girls do live like this. We know this, for here is Minnie, who announces she loves sex and wants it all the time – what’s more Minnie is not punished for this. Here are the women identifying with her love of sex, her search for love, her recognition that the two aren’t interchangeable, her experience in being called frightening by a teenage boy. This teenage girls deserve to be seen and here we see them.
This is not a morality tale. It is a diary. And it’s beautiful and funny and sad and painful and vital and a must see.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is on limited release on Friday 7th August.
