‘The Diary of a Teenage Girl’ Trailer: A Girl Comes of Age in This Sundance Hit

If you kept up with reviews and reactions out of the Sundance film festival back in January, then you’ve been keeping an eye out for The Diary of a Teenage Girl, the directorial debut from Marielle Heller starring Kristen Wiig, Alexander Skarsgard and newcomer Bel Powley. The first trailer for the upcoming film has arrived, and like the trailer for fellow Sundance hit Me and Earl and the Dying Girl before it, The Diary of a Teenage Girl looks like it can definitely live up to the hype.

Heller’s film centers on Minnie, a teen girl coming of age in ‘70s San Francisco, who loses her virginity to an older man — a man who just happens to be her mom’s boyfriend. The film traces Minnie’s blossoming sexuality through her inner most thoughts and desires, incorporating animated renderings of her drawings and her vivid imagination. Unlike older films, which might have exploited Minnie’s transition into sexual adulthood with an icky Lolita angle, The Diary of a Teenage Girl promises a more tender, honest and empathetic portrait of what it’s really like to come of age as a young woman.

Like most teenage girls, Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) is longing for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose in the world. Minnie begins a complex love affair with her mother’s (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend, “the handsomest man in the world,” Monroe Rutherford (Alexander Skarsgård). What follows is a sharp, funny and provocative account of one girl’s sexual and artistic awakening, without judgment.

That “without judgment” part is crucial, and it’s also what sets other coming of age stories about teenage girls apart — films like It Felt Like Love, S#x Acts and Girlhood.

The cast also features Christopher Meloni and Margarita Levieva (Lisa P. from Adventureland), and marks the debut of Heller, who just happens to be married to director and Lonely Island member Jorma Taccone.

The Diary of a Teenage Girl hits theaters on August 7.