THE DIARY OF A TEENAGE GIRL

1976, San Francisco; home of the burgeoning pop and drug culture, Haight-Ashbury, women’s liberation; a city where needs and whims are exacerbated, gratuitously exploited; a city that caters to the disenfranchised, disillusioned, draft dodgers; the dark underbelly of an otherwise, elitist population.

Written and directed by Marielle Heller (based on the book by Phoebe Gloeckner) “The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is a raw, sensationally explicit story narrated by “Minnie Goetz” (remarkable portrayal by Bel Powley); Minnie is fifteen, afflicted with a raging libido; saddled with a coke-snorting, alcoholic mother (Kristen Wiig) and her equally addicted, addled-minded boyfriend “Monroe” (Alexander Skarsgard). Minnie is an artist and pens to paper her licentious, lubricious liaisons, especially the seduction of “Monroe”, twenty years her senior and her mother’s lover. She defines her worthiness as an individual with intimacy; discrimination never flirts with her judgment.

Minnie’s eyes are cavernous pools of emotional chaos; she uses her body as a Litmus test of unprincipled accountability; sexual satisfaction, stimulated by drugs, temporarily appeases her rampant, solipsistic appetites and quells any remorse or guilt her compromising conduct might inflict. She records her exploits along with her graphic drawings and cavalierly hides them in plain sight.

“The Diary of a Teenage Girl” is well-filmed, stunningly acted, but profoundly uninteresting; difficult to invest in a teenage girl on her accelerated march toward moral turpitude.

TWO & 1/2 STARS!!

Peneflix