Even for freewheeling 1970s San Francisco, Minnie Goetze isn’t your typical 15-year-old. An aspiring cartoonist, Minnie (the magnetic Bel Powley in what is rightly being lauded as the breakout performance of the year) roams the city with minimal supervision from her party-girl mother (Kristen Wiig), drinking, doing drugs and failing at school. Oh, and sleeping with her mom’s lollygagger boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard).
That last circumstance, in particular, might not make her Everyteen. But “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is as rewarding as it is squirm-inducing for its honesty, audacity and artful portrayal of adolescence from a girl’s point of view. Fearless and foolhardy one minute, desperately afraid she’s too ugly to ever be loved the next, Minnie is on a journey that’s spectacular on the surface but universally relatable underneath.
Based on a largely autobiographical 2002 graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, “Diary” was adapted for the stage in 2010 by playwright-actor Marielle Heller to good reviews. Considering her lack of experience writing and directing for the screen, what Heller has accomplished with the movie is nothing short of amazing.
Monroe, somewhat likable despite his icky weakness, is no Humbert Humbert-style creep, just as Minnie is no sex-kitten Lolita. He is, of course, the one in the wrong here as the ostensible grown-up, but hand-wringing over the notion that the affair glorifies adult/minor sex is missing the point.
