That was an excellent one.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

My, how times have changed. Here is fifteen year old high school student, Bel Powley, coming of age in 1970s San Francisco. It's La Dolce Vita, according to this movie. I mean, sex, drugs, rock and roll. Powley's mother, Kristen Wiig, has a handsome young boyfriend, Alexander Skarsgård. Powley teases him and finally seduces him, and they get it on until Mom finds out about the affair. There are a few minutes given over to deep loneliness and despair. Powley almost is entrapped in a heroin joint by a lesbian but pulls herself away in the nick of time, as they say, and finally returns to Mom at home.Throughout these incidents -- involving not just Skarsgard but a handsome class mate and two men who pay for BJs in a toilet -- Powley has nothing on her mind but sex. Not marriage and a home. Not yet. Her values are entirely organoleptic. She is obsessed with being touched and banged. The F bomb is liberally distributed throughout the story. This is very much different from my own childhood years in a working-class suburb of Newark, New Jersey, a generation or so earlier. It was easy to coast through Hillside High School without ever discovering what a female breast felt like. Where were the Bel Powley's when we needed them, hey? O tempora, or mores! It isn't a Lifetime Movie though, not a soap opera, and it can hardly be called a domestic drama. The device of having Powley narrate the story into a tape recorder is a bit of a cliché but that's okay. It helps link the episodes together and Powley reads well enough. She's cast nearly perfectly. Not very pretty but not quite homely either, and shapeless rather than chubby. Her voice has an endearing crack when she tries to shout. The character is at that break point in the life course, a liminal state in which one enters adulthood without quite having outgrown childhood. For kicks, Powley and her girl friend jump up and down on the bed and sing songs. Between BJs, that is.But then all the performances are better than might be expected. As the uncertain mother on the hedonic treadmill, Krisen Wiig registers as savvy. As the seduced, Skarsgard ought to know better. Powley is fifteen. Groucho Marx used to refer to girls that age as San Quentin Quail, and Errol Flynn wound up in a scandalous affair leading to his trial as a rapist for doing what Skarsgars does to Powley. Except, of course, with Flynn being what he was, there were two teenage girls, not one.Yet this isn't a trite movie, with Skarsgard as the Humbert Humbert of the piece. Skarsgard's character is impulsive but has adult sensibilities and is generous with his compassion. He gives a fine, thoughtful performance. The direction too is whimsical but very engaging. There are episodes that are done as cartoons resembling Crumb's. The camera doesn't wobble. The cuts don't take place until the heft of the scene is absorbed by the viewer.The city is a scenic place, a tourist mecca, but it isn't milked for its glamor. And its atmosphere is nicely captured by the director, Marielle Heller. I was living there at the time this story takes place and loved its go-to-hell raffishness. Pot plants grew in the windows. Somebody was running for mayor -- a garishly made-up transvestite dressed in a nun's habit but with a tiny skirt and fishnet stockings. Name on the ballot: Sister Boom Boom.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is one of my favourite films. I waited so long for it to come out, having had it in my watch list since post-production, I was so excited when I could finally get my hands on it. The wardrobe was incredible, perhaps my favourite element, I wanted to own everything the main character wore. The acting was superb. I only watched because Kristen Wiig was in it, but I ended up falling in love with Bel Powley. The cartoon drawings were fantastic too. The film summed up the thoughts, feelings and emotions of a teenage girl exquisitely. It felt so real. Dialogue was fantastic too. I couldn't fault it. The movie was kind of like an American version of Fish Tank. I'd recommend to anyone. The ending was perfect too, the whole movie was perfect. Please watch.

Such a painfully typical and yet utterly unique story - all at the exact same time. And despite this being the case for all our stories - said juxtaposition remains an ever-difficult one to capture. Success in so doing, most always constituting the mark of a great film. Another ever-illusive and critical such juxtaposition largely pulled off here - is to help empower on the one hand, and yet to do so honestly on the other. Instead of spouting proud PC (black/elderly/latin/native/girl/etc.)- power escapism propaganda - peddled by so many lesser films. Abandoning honesty/objectivity is just so rarely worth the grave corresponding price. While honest empowerment, most always transcends simple-minded, biological-marker-based team-think. And so, ultimately, this is one of those comparatively few films - which makes me genuinely happy it exists. Minor warts and all.

Given the global angst over institutional paedophilia it is not surprising that The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015) is generating controversy. Views are divided about whether this coming-of-age teen pic glamorises statutory rape or portrays a lonely teenager's exploration of self-identity and womanhood. Based on an autobiographical novel, the film defies easy labelling because sex between a 15-year old girl and a 30-something male in hedonistic 1976 San Francisco did not mean what it means today. Film is about storytelling, and showing does not equal condoning. We know it happens and no amount of legal and moral argument can change that. So only one question matters here: does the film work?This is a beautifully self-narrated story of a butterfly emerging from a lonely, self-loathing teenage- hood. The plot is deceptively simple. Aspiring cartoonist Minnie is 15, thinks she is fat and ugly, lives with a self-obsessed and neglectful mother, and loses her virginity to her mother's boyfriend. The mother finds out (of course) and their worlds do not collapse. Played with wide-eyed innocence and disarming authenticity, British actress Bel Powley empowers the film with humour, pathos, and a degree of unrestrained youthful libido that speaks volumes for Minnie's rite-of- passage story. This is not about titillation and the intent is not salacious. Those offended by nudity can fast-forward, but scenes such as Minnie standing alone and naked watching herself in front of a mirror scream out self-doubt, fear and longing for love as she strides towards womanhood ahead of her years. The voice-over narration is expressive, well-written, funny and offers an intimate view into the very heart and soul of an ordinary teenager dealing with what life throws her way. The cinematography is evocative of the styles, colours and psychedelic attitudes of the 1970s, yet in some ways also shows how little has changed over four decades.Not everyone will agree, but part of the bigger story is about sexual equality. In real life, 15 year olds of all sexuality grapple with similar challenges and the big screen favours some over others. The search for love and identity are two of the constants of life, and this film shows something that most of us have experienced in some way. Unfashionable though it may be to admit it, I found this film quite touching.