“I had sex today. Holy shit.”These are the first words we hear from Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley), the main character in “The Diary of a Teenage Girl.” The chug-a-lug guitars of “Looking for the Magic” by the Dwight Twilley Band (“Only child is a silly little ragged, She’s been looking for the magic”) drift over the scene. Wide-eyed and innocent, Minnie skips, almost leaps, through a local park, the world stretched out in front of her anew. Everything has changed.The year is 1976, the setting San Francisco. Patty Hearst is on the nightly news (“I know how you feel Patty!” Minnie’s single-mother, played by Kristen Wiig, yells at the television) and a midnight screening of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” is the best thing to do on a Friday night. At school Minnie exists on the edge of popularity, more comfortable scribbling comics in a notebook. Her impulse for pleasure is awakened by the presence of Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard), the tight-jeaned boyfriend of her mother who spends most of his time spread across the living room couch like a coked-up king. Minnie watches Monroe and hopes he is watching her back, thrilled with the idea of being desired.Her dreams become a reality one night when Monroe, wanting to go to the local watering hole, ends up taking Minnie along at the suggestion of her mother, who is too tired. What begins as flirtation initiated by Minnie turns into seduction. He has an erection and she reaches down and touches it. “Is this what love feels like?” she asks herself.“The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” as you might imagine, is not your typical sex comedy. Based on the graphic-novel hybrid by Phoebe Gloeckner, the film, for one, is unabashed in its portrayal of teenage female sexuality. Minnie has no self-worth and no role models, and the adults around her send mixed-messages. Her mother is raising two children on her own, but at the same time tells her daughter, “I don’t want to brag but I was quite a piece when I was your age.” What is a teenager to do with that kind of information? When Minnie begins to slowly drift away from Monroe — but never too far — her sexual experience intimidates those around her (a boy who accepts her advances freaks out when it’s clear he’s not in control of the situation in the back seat of his car). Minnie is unashamed and wants more, looking for thrills and taking risks.It would have been easy to moralize Minnie’s story, to make it a cautionary tale. There is manipulation on the part of Monroe, certainly, but the film makes clear that Minnie is invested in the relationship, even enjoying it. Both of them have feelings for each other that the film presents as honest, even if, at least on the part of Monroe, those feelings are wrong and harmful. It’s a tricky balance because you want to assign blame — the film, however, refuses.Sex is certainly the driving force behind Minnie’s transformation throughout “The Diary of a Teenage Girl,” but it’s not really what the film is about. In the end, Minnie has not learned a lesson about promiscuity or found an age-appropriate partner who will respect her. But she has opened herself up and gained confidence, and through this process, went searching for a role model. She finds one in the comic-book artist Aline Kominsky. It is through Kominsky and her creativity that Minnie discovers her own identity and begins to build self-esteem.
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