Three edgy films about adolescence — The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, and Dope — are the breakout hits of the 2015 Sundance Film Festival.
Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård in The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Sam Emerson/Sony Pictures Classics
PARK CITY, Utah — The teens have taken over the Sundance Film Festival.
Thus far, the buzziest films at this year's indie movie fest have all been teenager-centric, based around breakout performances from impressive newcomers.
What sets The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl, and Dope apart from studio YA fare is their willingness to be more frank, daring, and provocative, as well as visually exuberant and goofy. There's not a trace of dystopia to be found in the universes of The Diary of a Teenage Girl's Minnie Goetze, Me & Earl & the Dying Girl's Greg Gaines, or Dope's Malcolm Adekanbi, but there are battles with sexual awakenings, grief, and crime to be fought, in addition to the more typical coming-of-age struggles.
These movies have been big hits with Park City audiences, and distributors are betting on their potential: They've all been picked up for eyebrow-raising sums of money. It looks like 2015 holds promising things for fans of teen movies unafraid to venture off the beaten path.
Alexander Skarsgård and Kristen Wiig in The Diary of a Teenage Girl
Sam Emerson/Sony Pictures Classics
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
The ballsiest (apologies for that) of the bunch is The Diary of a Teenage Girl, based on Phoebe Gloeckner's semiautobiographical graphic novel of the same name about a 15-year-old growing up in 1976 San Francisco. Its heroine, Minnie (Bel Powley), saunters into the movie to the strains of the Dwight Twilley Band's "Looking for the Magic," drawling triumphantly, "I had sex today. Holy shit," in a voice-over that turns out to be part of her cassette tape audio diary. Her glee is delightful...until we learn who did the deflowering: Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård, playing a perfect mix of ridiculous/sleazy/attractive), the flaky boyfriend of her flighty, hard-partying mom, Charlotte (Kristen Wiig).
Even through the haze of the sexually liberated '70s, the relationship that develops between the underage Minnie and the much older Monroe is clearly illegal and flat-out wrong. Monroe's no straightforward predator, but he is a reluctant if dedicated participant in the illicit trysts that Minnie enthusiastically initiates. She blithely pretends what she's doing is not a big deal, reasoning to her tape recorder that she's not very attractive and needs to take what she can get. Powley, who's 22, is lovely in a wonderfully atypical (for the movies) way with her giant eyes, open face, and heavy bangs. And the harsh self-evaluation Minnie gives herself is just one of the many touches of adolescent turmoil that ring piercingly true.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is the first film from director Marielle Heller, who also wrote the screenplay, and the empathy and honesty she brings to Minnie's experience and interior life is a powerful argument for why we need more female filmmakers. She brings a swooping fearlessness and frankness to the depiction of Minnie's first forays into sex, which, even when ill-advised, are all driven by her own desire. (She playfully draws an "X" in blood on Monroe's leg after losing her virginity to him.) Eventually, Minnie gets emotionally battered by her entanglement with a more experienced man trying to hold her at arm's length, but the physical side is never a problem. Her budding sexuality is a powerful, intimidating force, and the movie deserves all sorts of credit for not oversimplifying its unhealthy central relationship — Minnie has great sex with someone who only otherwise makes her feel like shit.
Heller also keeps The Diary of a Teenage Girl inside Minnie's experience, splashing the screen with animated versions of the comics she's started drawing. Cartoon flourishes appear around Monroe's face, a sketched penis pops out of a man's fly at the bookstore, and an animated version of Minnie's idol Aline Kominsky walks down the street with her to offer advice. The whimsical visuals are just extensions of Minnie's work. And they're a buoyant representation of the wild emotional highs and lows of being a teenager.
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