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The Diary of a Teenage Girl

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The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

August. 28,2015
|
6.8
|
R
| Drama Romance
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Minnie Goetze is a 15-year-old aspiring comic-book artist, coming of age in the haze of the 1970s in San Francisco. Insatiably curious about the world around her, Minnie is a pretty typical teenage girl. Oh, except that she’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.

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Scanialara
2015/08/28

You won't be disappointed!

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Cortechba
2015/08/29

Overrated

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Stevecorp
2015/08/30

Don't listen to the negative reviews

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Robert Joyner
2015/08/31

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

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2fresh 2clean
2015/09/01

"Diary of a Teenage Girl" is a disturbing story of a 15 year old girl who starts an affair with her mother's boyfriend. From reading another review I learned that this film is from a book by the author Phoebe Gloeckner. I don't think I'm going to read the book anytime soon but from how this film is I can tell that it must be a very good book. This film has a great story-line and in it are some disturbed characters. Minnie, played by Bel Powel, is the teenage girl who loses her virginity to her mother's boyfriend. From this event she mistakenly thinks she's grown and that starts a pattern of destructive events in her life. Monroe, who is played by Alexander Stargard, is the sicko who takes advantage of Minnie (Bel Powel). He continues the sick affair behind his girlfriend's back (Charlotte), who is played by Kristen Wiig, who has her own problems she's dealing with. One thing I didn't like about this film was the animated sequences that were incorporated into the film. I think it could have done without that but I guess it was good to display the main characters thoughts in that way. Over all, it's a nice film and I would recommend it.

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Howard Schumann
2015/09/02

Set in San Francisco in the mid-1970s, first-time director Marielle Heller's The Diary of a Teenage Girl looks at life from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old girl growing up absurd in an environment that provides little to no emotional support or guidance. Written by the director and based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, the film was the winner of the Grand Prix (Generation 14plus) at the Berlin Film Festival and was nominated for a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Minnie, in a remarkable performance by British actress Bel Powley ("A Royal Night Out"), is a confused and troubled teenager who lives with her divorced mother Charlotte (Kristin Wiig, "Welcome to Me") and her younger sister Gretel (Abby Wait).It is an environment that seems to be modeled after media notions of the San Francisco hip culture of the sixties, though, in reality, there was very little counter-culture left in San Francisco by the mid-seventies. Powley captures Minnie's innocence and personal appeal as well as her more manipulative moments, and manages to portray her as likable in a sea of unsympathetic characters. A talented comic book artist, Minnie speaks into a tape recorder in her room to journal her quest for a meaningful relationship, but the tapes are filled with self doubt and feelings of isolation that threaten to morph into self-loathing.The film opens when Minnie proudly announces that she's just had sex for the first time. Her sex partner, however, is her mother's 35-year-old boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard, "The Giver"), who freely enters into the relationship with the teenager, mindless of any ethical or legal concerns. Minnie is definitely not an innocent victim and Monroe is not a predator, but both act like emotional adolescents who are caught up in the moment and seem powerless to extricate themselves. Minnie's continued sexual relationship with Monroe enhances her self esteem and she has a stake in keeping it going regardless of the danger that her mother will find out.The only real friend she has is Kimmie (Madeleine Waters) who brags of many sexual conquests herself and Minnie feels comfortable in confiding in her details about her affair with Monroe and other experiments that include different types of relationships with both men and women involving drugs and prostitution. Unfortunately, Minnie keeps coming back to Monroe who has by now become a sad character. The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an honest film that presents the characters and situations as they are without judgment or evaluation.Yet while it does not judge its characters, it closes its eyes to morally dubious behavior, not commenting on Charlotte's outrageous invasion of her daughter's privacy when she listens to her private tape recordings which reveal the extent of her relationship with Monroe, or addressing the question of a parent's responsibility to provide emotional support for a an emotionally fragile teenager, regardless of the environment in which they are living.While Minnie and Monroe go through the motions of self-reflection, ultimately there is little substance to their quest for self understanding. There is only an emptiness inside that the film touches on but hardly explores and leaves us with a sense of unfulfillment. Minnie tells her friend that Monroe has gone to participate in the EST Training in Sacramento which she describes as a self-improvement seminar. That is the last we hear of it, however, and we never see any positive results from Monroe's experience or that it in any way had touched his life. The only results that Monroe reports are that during the weekend he was arrested for drunk driving.The message of the film is about the importance of loving yourself before you can love others and Minnie takes a long road towards that goal but female empowerment should not only be about sexual awakening but about integrity, taking responsibility for your life, awakening to the beauty and mystery of life, becoming involved in things larger than yourself. Given the emotional vacuum in which Minnie lives, there is nothing to indicate that any lessons have been learned. Ultimately, this is a film that displays the forms of self-awareness but lacks its substance.

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Michael O'Keefe
2015/09/03

Writer-director Marielle Heller gives us an almost voyeuristic look at a teen looking for self discovery. Minnie (Bel Powley) has no real self assurances, but finds her sexuality beginning to be a portal for her deeper discovery. She finds something in viewing herself in the mirror, but what would it feel like to have a lover's touch? Her artwork allows her to reach out to a female comic-creator (Susannah Schulman), and she records thoughts in her diary. She is desperate to share her experiences with someone in order to actually understand herself. Her friend, Kimmie (Madeline Waters), shares the adventure into sexuality. To boost her own sexual experience, Minne enters an affair with her mother's 35 yr-old boyfriend (Alexander Kkarsgard). Minnie is impulsive and craves sex; she has much to provide to pages of her diary.This movie earns its R rating with strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and raw language. I found it worth watching more than once. A mood elevating soundtrack features: Mott The Hoople, T. Rex and the Dwight Twilley Band.Also in the cast: Kristen Wiig, Miranda Bailey, Abby Wait, John Parsons and Carson D. Mell.

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jadavix
2015/09/04

"The Diary of a Teenage Girl" should be re-titled "The Diary of a Ridiculously Lucky Teenage Girl, the Kind that Only Exists in the Movies".It's a teen angst pic with a teen who has little, if anything, to be angsty about. The girl is ugly, and yet she has sex with typical Hollywood hunk Alexander Skarsgaard many times throughout the movie, and doesn't stop there. She also has to fend off the advances of a beautiful high school boy, who she of course also ends up bedding.Oh, but we get obligatory scenes with her crying and screaming and wailing. About what?She should be so lucky!Come on. Teenage girls are just as horny and sex obsessed as the male variety. This story would have packed some kind of punch if the guys she got with were even half as believable. How would you feel about a "teen angst" pic about a boy, ugly, sullen and withdrawn, who loses his virginity to Elle McPherson one night, and then has to fend off the attentions of Jessica Alba, who he still ends up bedding.Would you be able to take that seriously? Would you watch and empathise with his "angst" and cry his tears and want to hug him? Or would you just laugh at the ridiculous movie-land plot trying to be serious and meaningful?What's the difference?

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