Alienation is good for your art.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl

(2015)

(SPOILERS) Not so much flirting with controversial material as belly flopping into it, actress Marielle Heller’s writer-directorial debut adapts Phoebe Gloeckner’s 2002 graphic novel The Diary of a Teenage Girl: An Account in Words and Pictures with winning flair for the visual flourishes of its source material, its protagonist given to flights of fantasy and doodlings come alive. It comes as little surprise then, that Robert Crumb was an inspiration to Gloeckner; there’s a similarly libidinous grotesquery in protagonist Minnie’s style and obsessions. At times, one can’t help but recall Terry Zwigoff’s doc Crumb and the animated parts of American Splendor.

Set in San Francisco, 1976, Diary follows 15-year-old Minnie (English actress Bel Powley) on a journey of sexual discovery, as she is deflowered by her mother’s boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård) and proceeds to grow in confidence and abandon, despite being a bit of a geek at heart. Heller’s depicts a San Francisco of generally debauched licentiousness, a fecund setting for such rites of passage, and with a mother (Kristen Wiig) permanently out of it on something, and a stepfather-come-shrink (Christopher Meloni) mostly out of the picture, Minnie is pretty much unimpeded in her experimentation, for better or worse.

Teen angst bullshit can be a bit of chore to sit through, but when it’s infused with such wry observation, visual verve and idiosyncrasy as it is here, it’s frequently a delight (Diary isn’t a comedy, though, however much the larger-than-life elements and poster design may give that impression). Powley (in her 20s, lest anyone be concerned, which given Hollywood’s track record would be entirely reasonable) is marvellously dour as the febrile, heavy-lidded teen with a head full of noise, lust and longing, while Skarsgård is entirely unapologetic as the lustful lust object.

His morally culpable exploiter of teen flesh, surfing the frisson of a free-love licence in the period of Polanski’s proclivities, is perhaps the picture’s biggest risk, since Heller is uninterested in assigning standard-issue judgement calls, confident the audience can make their own minds up. Wiig is strong, but proffered something of a short straw in an underseen and used role (albeit at least partly required by the plot), while Abby Wait scores big with every line reading as a younger sister who manages to make Minnie look the height of cool.

It isn’t all note-perfect; an acid trip scene is unable to offer more than the heights of cliché, as Monroe has a bad one, and sometimes the succession of encounters feels like Minnie, or Heller, or Gloeckner, is ticking off a checklist. So too, the ending is disappointingly staid, embracing the learn-and-grow nature of the teen genre.

But mostly The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a fresh, vibrant movie, one that deserves to sit alongside the most astute charterings of the treacherous waters of teendom. Whatever Heller does next, and Powley for that matter, ought to be well worth a look. The UK 18 certificate seems as absurd as it did for Heathers back in the day, since it excludes the age group who would respond to it most (well, not really – when did a certificate ever do that? – but nominally so). This may be uncompromising, but it isn’t an especially explicit film, except perhaps in the censor’s fetid imagination; what probably most unnerved them is Diary’s reticence in terms of blame and consequence, thus failing to offer acceptably moralistic resolutions.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

I think I’m Pablo Picasso!

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021) (SPOILERS) I get the impression that, whatever it is stalwart Venom fans want from a Venom movie, this iteration isn’t it. The highlight here for me is absolutely the wacky, love-hate, buddy-movie antics of Tom Hardy and his symbiote alter. That was the best part of the original, before it locked into plot “progression” and teetered towards a climax where one CGI monster with gnarly teeth had at another CGI monster with gnarly teeth. And so it is for Venom: Let There Be Carnage . But cutting quicker to the chase.

I don’t think Wimpys still exist.

Last Night in Soho (2021) (SPOILERS) Last Night in Soho is a cautionary lesson in one’s reach extending one’s grasp. It isn’t that Edgar Wright shouldn’t attempt to stretch himself, it’s simply that he needs the self-awareness to realise which moves are going to throw his back out and leave him in a floundering and enfeebled heap on the studio floor. Wright’s an uber-geek, one with a very specific comfort zone, and there’s no shame in that. He evidently was shamed, though, hence this response to criticisms of a lack of maturity and – obviously – lack of versatility with female characters. Last Night in Soho goes broke for woke, and in so doing exposes his new clothes in the least flattering light. Because Edgar is in no way woke, his attempts to prove his progressive mettle lead to a lurid, muddled mess, one that will satisfy no one. Well, perhaps his most ardent fans, but no one else.

It looks like a digital walkout.

Free Guy (2021) (SPOILERS) Ostensibly a twenty-first century refresh of The Truman Show , in which an oblivious innocent realises his life is a lie, and that he is simply a puppet engineered for the entertainment of his creators/controllers/the masses, Free Guy lends itself to similar readings regarding the metaphysical underpinnings of our reality, of who sets the paradigm and how conscious we are of its limitations. But there’s an additional layer in there too, a more insidious one than using a Hollywood movie to “tell us how it really is”.

It becomes easier each time… until it kills you.

The X-Files 4.9: Terma Oh dear. After an engaging opener, the second part of this story drops through the floor, and even the usually spirited Rob Bowman can’t save the lethargic mess Carter and Spotnitz make of some actually pretty promising plot threads.

He's not a nightstalker, and it'll take a lot more than bench presses to defeat him.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) (SPOILERS) The most successful entry in the franchise, if you don’t count Freddy vs. Jason . And the point at which Freddy went full-on vaudeville, transformed into adored ringmaster rather than feared boogeyman. Not that he was ever very terrifying in the first place (the common misapprehension is that later instalments spoiled the character, but frankly, allowing Robert Englund to milk the laughs in bad-taste fashion is the saving grace of otherwise forgettably formulaic sequel construction). A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master boasts the most inventive, proficient effects work yet, but it’s also by far the least daring in terms of plotting, scraping together a means for Freddy to persist in his nocturnal pestilence while offering nothing in the way of the unexpected, be it characterisations or story points.

Give daddy the glove back, princess.

Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991) (SPOILERS) Looking at Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare , by some distance the least lauded (and laudable) of the original Elm Street sextet, you’d think it inconceivable that novice director and series old-hand – first as assistant production manager and finally as producer – Rachel Talalay has since become a respected and in-demand TV helmer. For the most part, Freddy’s Dead is shockingly badly put together. It reminded me of the approach the likes of Chris Carter and Sir Ken take, where someone has clearly been around productions, absorbing the basics of direction, but has zero acumen for turning that into a competent motion picture, be it composition, scene construction, editing or pacing. Talalay’s also responsible for the story idea here, which does offer a few nuggets, at least, but her more primary role actively defeats any positives.

Monster nom nom?

The Suicide Squad (2021) (SPOILERS) This is what you get from James Gunn when he hasn’t been fed through the Disney rainbow filter. Pure, unadulterated charmlessness, as if he’s been raiding his deleted Twitter account for inspiration. The Suicide Squad has none of the “heart” of Guardians of Galaxy , barely a trace of structure, and revels in the kind of gross out previously found in Slither ; granted an R rating, Gunn revels in this freedom with juvenile glee, but such carte blanche only occasionally pays off, and more commonly leads to a kind of playground repetition. He gets to taunt everyone, and then kill them. Critics applauded; general audiences resisted. They were right to.

Give poor, starving Gurgi munchings and crunchings.

The Black Cauldron (1985) (SPOILERS) Dark Disney? I guess… Kind of . I don’t think I ever got round to seeing this previously. The Fox and the Hound , sure. Basil the Great Mouse Detective , most certainly. Even Oliver and Company , so I wasn’t that selective. But I must have missed The Black Cauldron , the one that nearly broke Disney, for the same reason everyone else did. But what reason was that? Perhaps nothing leaping out about it, when the same summer kids could see The Goonies , or Back to the Future , or Pee Wee’s Big Adventure . It seemed like a soup of other, better-executed ideas and past Disney movies, stirred up in a cauldron and slopped out into an environment where audiences now wanted something a touch more sophisticated.

What about the panties?

Sliver (1993) (SPOILERS) It must have seemed like a no-brainer. Sharon Stone, fresh from flashing her way to one of the biggest hits of 1992, starring in a movie nourished with a screenplay from the writer of one of the biggest hits of 1992. That Sliver is one Stone’s better performing movies says more about how no one took her to their bosom rather than her ability to appeal outside of working with Paul Verhoeven. Attempting to replicate the erotic lure of Basic Instinct , but without the Dutch director’s shameless revelry and unrepentant glee (and divested of Michael Douglas’ sweaters), it flounders, a stupid movie with vague pretensions to depth made even more stupid by reshoots that changed the killer’s identity and exposed the cluelessness of the studio behind it. Philip Noyce isn’t a stupid filmmaker, of course. He’s a more-than-competent journeyman when it comes to Hollywood blockbuster fare ( Clear and Present Danger , Salt ) also adept at “smart” smaller pict

Oh hello, loves, what year is it?

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) (SPOILERS) Simu Lui must surely be the least charismatic lead in a major motion picture since… er, Taylor Lautner? He isn’t aggressively bad, like Lautner was/is, but he’s so blank, so nondescript, he makes Marvel’s super-spiffy new superhero Shang-Chi a superplank by osmosis. Just looking at him makes me sleepy, so it’s lucky Akwafina is wired enough for the both of them. At least, until she gets saddled with standard sidekick support heroics and any discernible personality promptly dissolves. And so, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings continues Kevin Feige’s bold journey into wokesense, seemingly at the expense of any interest in dramatically engaging the viewer.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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