Our girl Minnie Goetze would be in her mid-20s now, if movie time followed the logic of real time. Instead, the central character in the 2015 film The Diary of a Teenage Girl is forever 15 in 1976 San Francisco, figuring out who she is in the context of sex, family and her artistic dreams.
Even a decade after its release, Marielle Heller’s debut film remains a rare thing: a girl’s coming-of-age story that a) acknowledges its protagonist’s sexual desires; and b) doesn’t punish her for acting on them. These would be reasons enough to revisit the movie, but a Nov. 4 screening at the Roxie, co-presented by the San Francisco Film Commission (Film SF) and SFFILM, further celebrates Diary of a Teenage Girl’s relationship to San Francisco.
“It was essential to me to authentically capture the city’s iconic look, feel, and spirit,” Heller said in a statement released by Film SF. “It wouldn’t have been the same anywhere else.” Heller, whose most recent film was Nightbitch, grew up in Alameda.
Adapted from Phoebe Gloeckner’s semi-autobiographical graphic novel, Diary of a Teenage Girl follows Minnie (a breakout Bel Powley) in her pursuit of the suboptimal but “handsomest” Monroe Rutherford (Alexander Skarsgård), her mother’s 35-year-old boyfriend.
Everyone watching knows this is a bad idea, but this is Minnie’s story, and she’s ecstatic: “I had sex today … Holy shit!” Powley embodies Minnie and all her emotional turbulence with the help of incisive, sometimes hilarious voiceovers. Animated sequences that further illustrate Minnie’s inner life pay homage to her idol, the cartoonist Aline Kominsky.
