She is a teenager, and the joy and the pain are, they’re almost like manic-depressives, teens. I guess what I didn’t add is, Minnie would have been equally joyful, but it would have gone a little more deeply into the darker areas of the story. She kicks off the movie with this voiceover of: “I had sex today. There’s this real exuberance to Minnie, even though what’s happening to her is dark. Which was interesting to hear because, tonally, it’s not a super-dark movie. You’ve said that, if you made the movie, it would have been much darker, that it would have hurt to watch. I had to see it twice, because I couldn’t even grasp what it meant to me, or even, I couldn’t judge it. And since then, I was on the set of the movie and my kids were involved in one way or another in the production, so when I finally saw the movie, I guess I was just stunned. The first time I saw that, I just wanted to cry. I think it started a long time ago when M produced a play.
I would say that, seeing the actual movie was not the pinnacle of that strangeness. I spoke with Gloeckner about watching her story depicted in film, complicated mother-daughter relationships, and why it’s so rare to see girls like Minnie in the movies. Diary invites us to see Minnie the way she sees herself. So many movies show teenage girls as men see them, as objects of someone else’s desire instead of agents of their own. And that might be the best thing about Diary, how it takes a story we think we know - older man seduces innocent girl-child - and holds it up to the light for a closer examination, allowing that someone inside that experience can have a valid interpretation of those facts that doesn’t align with our expectations. Monroe is a predator, but Minnie doesn’t see herself as a victim - at least, this girl who regularly asserts that she is “a fucking woman” would be insulted to hear anyone categorize her that way. But Diary allows that Minnie can be on the prowl for a multitude of things at once, that she can want sex as in end unto itself, or that she can really be wanting attention, or love, or to be wanted. Minnie gets the coming-of-age treatment so rarely offered to girls in movies: She has sex, she likes it, and whatever the fallout is - and, as you can imagine considering the circumstances, there is considerable fallout - it doesn’t leave her wrecked. Diary was adapted by Marielle Heller, in 2010, as a play Heller directs the movie version, in theaters now. And that he is Minnie’s mother’s boyfriend.ĭiary is based on Phoebe Gloeckner’s 2002 graphic novel of the same name, which in turn is based largely on Gloeckner’s own life.
Holy shit.”Ī few minutes later, we find out that the man with whom she had sex, Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard), is much older than she is. Fifteen-year-old Minnie (Bel Powley), spring in her stride, tells us in a voiceover that she just lost her virginity. The Diary of a Teenage Girl starts with a triumph.