Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		3.5

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman January 21, 2016

It's no secret that hormones do crazy things to people. They lead to newfound feelings of desire, affection, and physical need, topped off with a heaping helping of confusion and emotional upset. They may lead someone to do the unexpected, with someone unexpected. Their arrival on the scene results in a time of great upheaval, an individual's most trying, yet most personal, point in life. Cinema's exploration of teenage sexuality hasn't left many stones unturned, but it gets perhaps its most blunt and original refresher in The Diary of a Teenage Girl, Director Marielle Heller's debut feature based on the book of the same name by Phoebe Gloeckner. The movie offers a thorough study of one girl's transformation throughout her sexual awakening, from her first encounter to experimentation and promiscuity and all of the emotional responses she experiences along the way. There are no pies and no flutes but instead an open and deeply reflective, but still outwardly focused, and mildly humorous, journey into sexual activation and adulthood.

Glowing.

Minnie (Bel Powley) is a 15-year-old living in 1976 San Francisco and is just beginning to feel her body's needs for attention and sexual gratification. But she has doubts about herself, physically and emotionally both. She lives with her mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig), her younger sister Gretel (Abigail Wait), and her mother's boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård). One night, when just Minnie and Monroe are left watching television, he lays his hand on her breast. The two go to a bar soon thereafter and he admits that she sexually arouses him. The two begin sleeping together. He takes her virginity and she's swept off her feet. Minnie becomes obsessed with sex and, in a way, is more satisfied, and more confused, by the emotions she feels afterwards than those she experiences during the act. Soon, she begins experimenting with other men, sometimes in conjunction with her friend Kimmie (Madeleine Waters).

While the film explores plenty of overt sexuality through the joys of physical contact, it's really, instead, the story of self emotional exploration, of sorting through what it means to be a burgeoning adult, of dealing not so much with societal pressures surrounding sex but instead the innate, almost animalistic drive to have sex while dealing with the inherently and uniquely human emotional responses thereof. It's a story not about intercourse, fellatio, threesomes, and other sexually explicit conduct that the film depicts, or even the sensations they engender in the body, but rather the feelings that flood the spirit and overwhelm the mind both in the moment and long afterward. Minnie experiences everything from self praise to self doubt. Rarely does she not indulge in her physical sexual fantasies and satisfy her wants, and rarely does she walk away from an encounter without a specific and unique response, a response that evolves throughout the course of the movie as she learns that it's the value of her own self-worth, not the wants and needs of others, that will most deeply satisfy her. This is one of the more honest, both inwardly and outwardly, teenage sex and coming-of-age films in memory. It's not for everyone, but it does offer, through the (literal stylistic and metaphorical thematic) haze a well-rounded look at the inner and outer sexual workings of adolescence.

The film offers an interesting counter perspective to Minnie in Monroe, an older man who has, obviously, matured beyond the frenzied turmoil of puberty and is now, instead, a man whose sexual desires are no less and, really, no less in control. His relationship with Minnie, which is largely only sexual in nature but hints at notes of something more -- brought on more by adolescent confusion on one side and mature experience on the other -- serves only as a means to more fully explore Minnie's blossoming sexuality but also demonstrate that people don't necessarily figure it out with the passage of time. Alexander Skarsgård is terrific as the man who is, even if he's not overtly aware, taking advantage of Minnie's confused state. Rarely does the film depict him as doing anything other than flirting with or bedding Minnie or handling Minnie's increasingly suspect mother. In one scene, he confronts Charlotte's ex-husband while lounging on the couch with a bowl of cereal and most of his attention turned on the television. He has what he wants, and he doesn't necessarily care about anything else. He's come to terms with all of the emotions and has compartmentalized them to where they linger below the surface rather than bubble over every minute of every day, as is the case with Minnie. Bel Powley dominates the film with an impressive performance as the explorative teenager who yearns to understand her body, experience the world, and be wanted. Her work is a revelation in the genre for openness and authenticity in dealing with a difficult subject.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Diary of a Teenage Girl's 1080p transfer comes sourced from a digital shoot on the Red Epic camera, but like several other recent digital productions it nearly captures the texture of film. It's certainly aided by the movie's somewhat diffuse appearance and push to a heavy period tint that favors a golden-bronze color scheme. That scheme helps accentuates locations, such as the overwhelmingly creamy yellow family kitchen or Monroe's brown-accented apartment. Flesh tones pick up on that contrast and reflect it. Details are a little soft, but refined. Faces and clothes reveal fine nuances and supporting environmental accents, whether in Minnie's home or more densely packed bars. Black levels push a little too pale at times but appear reflective of the movie's intended vintage stylings. Noise is minimal and other eyesores aren't cause for concern.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Diary of a Teenage Girl features a well-rounded, but rather basic, DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. Music usually comes in the form of mid-70s period music, which presents with rich instrumental clarity and easy spacing throughout the stage. Lyrics are sometimes a touch muffled. There are not many instances of the track feeling truly wide-open, but considering that this is more of an inwardly reflective movie, that's fine. Basic din at a few bars is adequately robust and filling as it lingers about the stage. An underwater sequence presents a nice bit of heavy depth around the listener. For the most part, however, this is a dialogue intensive film. The spoken word flows from the center with scene-commanding clarity throughout.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Diary of a Teenage Girl contains several extras, included an audio commentary and deleted scenes. A voucher for a UV digital copy is included with purchase.

• Audio Commentary: Director Marielle Heller and Actors Bel Powley & Alexander Skarsgård deliver a track that's a mix of breezy, fun, and anecdotal and technically and dramatically informative. Fans of the film should find plenty of value in a listen.
• Deleted Scenes (1080p): Domino vs. The City (0:59), Charlotte's Making Dinner (2:22), and Minnie and Friends (2:14).
• Marielle's Journey: Bringing the Diary to Life (1080p, 23:07): A closer look at Director Marielle Heller's history with the source material, including a stage adaptation and transition to film. The piece features cast and crew discussing story details and themes, characters, casting, qualities the cast brought to the roles and the qualities Heller wanted from them, finding the film's and characters' emotions, sex in the film, sourcing details from the book, the film's visual tone, recreating a specific 70s look, shooting locations, animated supports, and more.
• Q&A with Marielle Heller, Alexander Skarsgård and Bel Powley (1080p, 25:19): Moderator Jenelle Riley sits down with the participants for an informative question-and-answer session.
• The Diary of a Teenage Girl Theatrical Trailer (1080p, 1:48).
• Previews (1080p): Additional Sony titles.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an outwardly explicit, but inwardly satisfying, journey through adolescence and burgeoning sexual maturity. Through experimentation -- defined, mostly, by various risqué encounters and predominantly with her mother's boyfriend -- lead character Minnie explores her emotional response to sex and the urge to be needed and appreciated. Bel Powley and Alexander Skarsgård are revelations in the lead roles, particularly in how they expertly handle extremely delicate material. Sony's Blu-ray release of The Diary of a Teenage Girl features a strong A/V technical presentation and a helthy allotment of extra content. Recommended.