A comic-book movie with a difference, The Diary Of A Teenage Girl is based on a much-loved illustrated novel by Phoebe Gloeckner. It’s the kind of thing chin-stroking film critics (especially German one) might call a bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale about a girl growing up in swinging San Francisco in the 1970s. The movie has a new trailer you can catch below.
The young girl in question, Minnie, is played by an eye-catching Bel Powley. Her flawless Californian tones belie London roots as Minnie, a gifted cartoonist and writer, navigates all the perks and pitfalls of being a teenager as she experiments with sex, drugs and Iggy Pop posters.
Her mum (Kristen Wiig) is seeing a well-meaning but hazy character called Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård), who soon becomes the focus of Minnie’s infatuations. She records all her most intimate thoughts and experiences – and they get pretty intimate – in a series of tape recordings and illustrated diaries. As her life oscillates from heady peaks to deep troughs, her illustrations come to life around her in a riot of shape and colour against the dying embers of the hippie era. Think the Fabulous Furry Freak Sisters or Bedknobs And Joss Sticks.
Directed by feature first-timer Marielle Heller and lauded at Sundance, The Diary Of A Teenage Girl arrives in UK cinemas on August 7.