The Diary of a Teenage Girl

First Hit:  Great view of the 70’s and how one young girl grows through her budding sexuality.

The late 1960’ through the mid-late 1970’s were ripe with open sexuality and drug use. This film captures the mood and feeling of this era with some spot on dialogue, scenes and cinema-graphic feel.

The story is about a young girl, Minnie (Bel Powley), who wants to be touched, love and be loved. Her father Pascal (Christopher Meloni) is long out of the picture and his former wife Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) lives the life of partying with drugs and drink. Minnie’s younger sister Gretel (Abby Watt) and she lead their own lives although they are just teenagers.

Charlotte's boyfriend, joining her in this chosen lifestyle, is a vitamin pill producer named Monroe (Alexander Skarsgard). When Monroe makes slight advances towards Minnie, she responds with enthusiasm and their affair starts. Minnie likes her budding sexuality and her sex with Monroe becomes her life's focus. Monroe just cannot seem to help himself around Minnie.

She documents this new adventure and change in her life by drawing cartoons in her notebook and recording her thoughts on cassette tapes. When her mom finds out what has happened, the expected blowup transpired and then takes some odd turns. Minnie works through her pain in her own way. What struck me about the film was the way it was shot.

The director and cinematographer, really captured the way films looked back in the 1970’s. The strengths of the performances effectively carried the theme and attitudes of the era.

Powley was fantastic as the girl looking for love and affection. She created a strong feeling of young angst while also displaying the ability to grow into a new level of maturity. Wiig was strong as a mother of the 70’s. She was able to exemplify the sense of the era. I know because I was a young father in the 70’s as well. Skarsgard was very good as the guy who couldn’t help himself around the young sexually charged Minnie. Watt was perfect as the annoying, yet loving, sister. Meloni was effective as the guilt-ridden intellectual absent father. Marielle Heller wrote a strong script displaying a great feel for the era as well as Minnie’s view of the world. In her direction, Heller did a great job of creating a perfect sense and feel of the times.

Overall:  Although a difficult film to watch, the strong story makes up for it.

42

First Hit:  A very good and enjoyable film that covered most all the necessary bases, sort-of-speak.

Jackie Robinson made history by being the first black man (“negro” in the film) to sign and play on a major league baseball team.

Branch Rickey (Harrison Ford) was the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers and he foresaw the day, ahead of everyone else, that putting the best players on the field is what is important. Later on in the film Jackie (Chadwick Boseman) sits down with Branch and asks him to give him the real reason why he took this chance; the answer is heartfelt.

Overall this film is set up to please everyone. It isn’t a dark film, which it could have been, nor does it gloss over the pain Jackie went through; it is placed in the middle. I think this was done to bring in a wider audience.

There are scenes in this film that are beautifully done: Pee Wee Reese (Lucas Black) returning to his home town and realizing he has to make his truth known on the field; and Leo Durocher (Christopher Meloni) dressing down the team for the petition they were signing. The film is filled with them. Yes, some of it is sugar coated, but the diatribe by the Phillies manager was clearly enough to give the film audience a taste of what Robinson went through.

The baseball scenes were well shot and brought the beauty and intensity of baseball to the screen.

Ford was amazingly gruff, focused, driven and a joy to watch as he truly made this role his own. Boseman was really great as Jackie. He gave us an amazing view of the emotional ups and downs that Jackie might have gone through. Nicole Beharie gave us a solid performance as Jackie’s wife Rachel. Being of strong nature herself, the shock of the south required her to find other ways to fight back. Meloni was fantastic as Durocher. John C. McGinley as radio announcer Red Barber was really good. Andre Holland playing black sports writer Wendell Smith was really good and at times inspiring. Brian Helgeland wrote and directed this with an eye and ear for baseball and the social commentary required to pull this off.

Overall:  This was a very good full family film.