The Diary of a Teenage Girl 2015

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Heller's empathy and, let's be honest, her denial of prurience appears to free Powley from embarrassment. She's seizing this part, not shrinking from it. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: I made it two-thirds of the way through the routine sexual coming-of-age yarn "Diary of a Teenage Girl" when it occurred to me that anything else I could conceivably be doing would be more interesting. Read more

Sara Stewart, New York Post: Frank, poignant and daring, "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" invites you into the mind-set of a sexually adventurous 16-year-old girl - and suggests you leave your judgment at the door. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, TIME Magazine: A movie of (increasingly rare) truly indie sensibility, made by women who are confident about healthy feminine resilience. Read more

Dennis Harvey, Variety: A fine adaptation of Phoebe Gloeckner's autobiographical novel about a sexually precocious 1970s adolescence. Read more

Jesse Hassenger, AV Club: For a movie about such fraught topics, sometimes rendered with admirable and non-squeamish explicitness, Diary often eschews melodrama; when the plot turns, it does so abruptly, providing a credible simulation of real-life tumult. Read more

Barbara VanDenburgh, Arizona Republic: Heller's debut directorial effort is incisive and universal, despite its very specific and detailed setting. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is a breakthrough moment in the culture in that it depicts youthful female sexuality ... not just with the unapologetic frankness the boys usually get, but with an awareness of all the places a girl's urges will take her ... Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: It dares to show the heroine as something more complicated than a victim. As a result the movie lands somewhere outside the battle lines of contemporary gender politics, which may be why it feels true. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The film is harsh but wonderful. It shouldn't be funny, too, but somehow it is, and somehow it's the right kind of funny. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: The Diary of a Teenage Gir is the kind of movie that seems a lot more adventuresome than it is. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Powerful, exhausting, ecstatic, twisted and unerringly honest, "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is a rare film indeed, a look at a young girl's messy coming of age told completely from the young girl's point of view. Read more

Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: Working from Phoebe Gloeckner's 2002 graphic novel/memoir, Heller gets the shabby glamour and bleached sunshine of '70s San Francisco just right, coloring several scenes with vivid blooms of animation. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A strikingly intimate look at a teenager's sexual life in an outstanding debut film. Read more

Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times: Big summer action movies can be thrilling, but if you really want to feel your heart pounding out of your chest, try being a 15-year-old girl for 101 minutes. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: Any woman who survived puberty knows that girlhood is all about obsession -- just ask Justin Bieber, One Direction, New Kids on the Block, or the Beatles. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Thank goodness the irreverent but earnest Diary of a Teenage Girl avoids the moralizing that would usually accompany a film about young people, sex and drugs. Read more

Elaine Teng, The New Republic: It's unlikely to make a box office splash, but it's a startlingly tough, authentic depiction of budding womanhood. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Heller approaches the film in just the right way: As an absolute outgrowth of arty Minnie's own pent-up creativity. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, New York Daily News: The loose quality makes for a bit of a shaggy story with some rough edges, but the bursting, youthful heart throbs with that mix of longing and triumph that is first love. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: The novel is life-specific, but what makes Minnie - on the page and now on the screen - greater than any one girl is how she tells her own story in her own soaringly alive voice. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: An honest and personal and unblurred examination (even through that druggy blur) of a tricky voyage into womanhood. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: A riveting, resonant first feature from Marielle Heller, with a breakout star performance from Brit actress Bel Powley. Read more

Matthew Lickona, San Diego Reader: There is a kind of achievement in depicting a sexual relationship between an adult man and his girlfriend's daughter in a way that makes it feel neither predatory nor twisted... Whether it is a thing worth achieving is another question. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Writer/director Marielle Heller, in her captivating debut film "The Diary of a Teenage Girl," hits exactly the right tone for a complicated balancing act, and for a film that could very easily have gone wrong. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: It's work, but it's ultimately rewarding work. It tackles some truths that other movies wouldn't touch, not even with a stick and thick gloves. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "The Diary of a Teenage Girl" is as rewarding as it is squirm-inducing for its honesty, audacity and artful portrayal of adolescence from a girl's point of view. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Films often fail to capture the turmoil of being a teenager - but not this one. Read more

Nathalie Atkinson, Globe and Mail: Seldom has teenage sexual awakening been covered from a female perspective - with a fickle alternating confidence, self-doubt and voracious appetite - quite so frankly or delicately. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Expect to feel uncomfortable watching Diary of a Teenage Girl, which is precisely the point of this finely etched debut feature by writer/director Marielle Heller. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: What a ballsy film - and honest too. Read more

Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine/Vulture: The first thing to know about The Diary of a Teenage Girl is that young British actress Powley is staggeringly good in it. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Heller and Powley present a journey that, stripped to its most basic emotional elements, is timeless and universal. Read more