The Diary of a Teenage Girl

by Donna Kelly

Based on the graphic novel by Phoebe Gloeckner, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a coming-of-age comedy/drama written and directed by Marielle Heller. Set in 1970s San Francisco, it follows the story of Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), a 15-year old girl who enters into an affair with her mother’s 34 year-old boyfriend, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård).

Challenging, edgy and controversial, The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a film about sexual awakening and the crossroads between female adolescence and womanhood. The narrative is told from the perspective of 15-year old Minnie who details her experiences on audio cassette, which forms the narrative voiceover of the film. Set against the backdrop of the west coast hippie and feminist movement, Minnie’s mother Charlotte shows her daughter little love and affection and seems more intent on getting drunk and high on drugs. Minnie longs to be loved and touched so when her mum’s boyfriend invites her for a drink, Minnie’s hormones being to rage, and despite Monroe being two decades her senior, the pair begin an illicit and illegal affair.

While there are plenty of indie films that deal with sexual experimentation and the journey from adolescence to adulthood,  Diary certainly pushes the limits when it comes to exploring unchecked sexual desires. While actress Bel Powley is in her twenties, there’s no getting away from the fact that she’s playing a 15-year old having sex with a much older man. The film is full of sex and drugs (including sex with strangers, group sex and even bouts of prostitution) all of which show Powley in varying states of undress, and while the scenes are done with respect, it still morally challenging to watch.

What truly pulls the film through is the stunning performances. Powley is superb as Minnie, the wannabe graphic artist who may have made the transition into womanhood but deep down is still very much an immature child. Powley’s raw and untamed performance makes Diary the edgy film that it is and demonstrates her talent as a versatile actress.

Kristen Wiig is excellent as Charlotte, Minnie’s free-loving, heavy-drinking, drug-taking mother, who at times, perceives her daughter as a rival. Disappointingly, her character rarely appears on screen but when she does, she brings a kind of candor and ironic verve to a woman who needs a harsh lesson in parental responsibility but does care…in her own way.

A special mention needs to go to Skarsgård as the handsome, yet morally dubious Monroe Rutherford. Skarsgård, who arguably plays the hardest role in the film, perfectly conveys the balance between addictive lust and troubled moral conscience to pull off an incredibly convincingly performance.

Visually, this is a stunning film, captured in a beautifully hazy luminescence by cinematographer Brandon Trost (who won the Cinematography award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival), and the film’s period detail is also excellent. There is plenty of animation superimposed over the live action (in the style of Phoebe Gloeckner and Aline Kominsky) and while this works well as a narrative device, it may not be to everyone’s taste.

If you can overlook the morally difficult subject matter,  The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a provocative, candid and funny film about the transition from female adolescence to womanhood and, more importantly, the value of self-worth. A decent directorial debut from Marielle Heller.

Read more of Donna’s reviews at Screenrelish.com

Straight Outta Compton

by George Wolf

“Speak a little truth and people lose their minds.”

The members of N.W.A. were hardly the first artists to learn that lesson, but in the late 1980s, they lived it. Straight Outta Compton tells their story with enough honesty, humor and style to make it not only utterly compelling and completely entertaining, but also a damn good history lesson.

N.W.A. became both heroes and villains in 1988, when their album Straight Outta Compton (and specifically their song “Fuck tha Police”) set off a national firestorm. While much of white suburbia clutched their pearls, group members Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, MC Ren and Dj Yella explained they were just writing what they knew, and expressing just how it felt to live their lives.

Director F. Gary Gray (Friday, The Negotiator, The Italian Job, Be Cool) wastes no time getting your attention, opening with a terrifically tense drug raid sequence followed by Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) running from the police on Compton, California rooftops.

Gray, aided by screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, keeps up the brisk, thoughtful and surprisingly funny pace early on, as we see the group form and take their street knowledge to the recording studio, propelled by Ice Cube’s lyrics, Dr. Dre’s production skills and Eazy-E’s cash flow. Their rise to headline status is endlessly watchable, filled with defiant music and often interspersed with actual news reports from the era.

Mitchell is outstanding as Eazy-E, bringing the swagger required of the group’s early leader, as well as the deeper layers of character that make his downfall as sympathetic as it is expected. The only thing stopping Mitchell from stealing the movie is O’Shea Jackson, Jr,’s breakthrough performance as his real-life father Ice Cube.

The resemblance is uncanny even for a father/son duo but even more than that, Jackson, Jr. embodies the restlessness and rage behind those early rhymes. You can feel his understandable pride in telling this story, and the camera is simply drawn to his charisma. Expect much more from this kid.

The film has many balls in the air, and Gray manages a deft juggling act for most of the nearly 2 1/2 hour running time. It would be understandable, if not outright forgivable, to belabor the point that current headlines only confirm N.W.A. were reporting their present, not seeing the future, but the film gains more power from subtlety.

Melodrama does sneak into the moments when tragedy strikes the group’s inner circle, the pace begins to drag in the third act, and making Dr. Dre’s mother a cliched, forced character seems a desperate attempt to feature at least one positive female. But there’s irony in the missteps.

The film does so many things well, the sudden speed bumps feel more damaging than they end up being.

And, of course, music is the ace in the hole. You hear familiar songs begin to take shape, then acquire a new power as they form in the studio or explode onstage via sweaty, fist-pumping performance pieces. Kudos, too, to whoever decided (I’m guessing it was co-producers Cube and Dre) to pepper the soundtrack with plenty of George Clinton music, giving a much-sampled legend due credit.

This is a musical biopic with some pretty high stakes. It’s at once a universal story of expression, and an intimate American journey, as vital to its own time as it is to ours.

High stakes can bring a big payoff, much like the one you’ll find one in Straight Outta Compton.