The truth is: Hollywood (for the most part) rarely excels at telling nuanced stories about a young woman’s self-discovery. In film, as in life, sexually active teenage girls are quickly lumped into the category of slut, fetish object, or nymphomaniac. It’s rare to see a narrative that gives them any kind power over their sexuality; it’s perhaps rarer still to see a storyline about teenage sex that doesn’t shame a young woman for making a poor decision, with potentially life-changing repercussions, at some point down the plot line.
Thankfully, The Diary of a Teenage Girl breaks that mold. This movie gives women permission to — gasp! — actually admit that during the horny hormone days of yore, they too were excited, even obsessive about sex, and everything that came with it.
Of course, there’s a darker storyline at play in the film, which rose to critical acclaim at Sundance this year. Minnie Goetz —a latchkey kid, whose parents aren’t winning any supervision awards — loses her virginity with a much older man, who also happens to be dating... her mother. (And, while this is certainly an area of prime importance to delve deeper into, we'll save that for another time.)
What is apparent from the trailer is that — for better or worse — Minnie is enlivened by this shift of course, and it clearly makes her a more active participant in her own story, but in a positive way. And, while there's certainly other nuances to pick apart, for the moment, we're just going to bask in the charming sneak peek at the film, which arrives in theaters August 2015.
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