The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Marielle Heller's directorial debut The Diary of a Teenage Girl really packs a punch as a confronting film about sexuality, intimacy and coming of age. What sets this film apart from other films in this genre is that it is told through the lens of a teenage girl, and while this is a refreshing approach, it does heighten the tension and make the movie more real.

Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) lives in 1970s San Francisco with her mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) and younger sister Gretel (Abby Wait). She is attracted to her mother's boyfriend Monroe (Alexander Skårsgard) and soon begins an affair with him, losing her virginity at the same time. Minnie soon begins an journey of exploring her sexuality joined by her friend Kimmie (Madeline Waters), but at the same time is under the watchful eye of her concerned stepfather Pascal (Christopher Meloni).

What caught me instantly about this movie was its tone. I had initially thought it was going to be a light comedy, and it is pretty funny in places, turned out to be a rather serious drama. And this is definitely a welcome fact. If this movie had been funny the whole way through, I think it would definitely trivialise the subject matter and say "Hey, girls can't be sexual beings." By taking it all seriously, Minnie's journey to adulthood is legitimised. The film's exploration of intimacy and feminism is greatly aided by the characters around Minnie, especially her mother Charlotte and Monroe. The exploration of drug experimentation also feels genuine and a little more scary than that idea of peace loving hippies you associate with experimentation around this time.

Although you could transplant this story into any decade since the 60s and still have it be effective, the choice to set it in the 70s was a good one, especially when you add the San Francisco setting into the mix. The muted colour palatte of the film really lends to that familiar look of the film and the soundtrack really cements this feeling. All the costumes also give the film a great authenticity. The film's editing and camera choices also stick out as technical elements that really help convey some of the subtle emotion of the film.

For someone with such limited screen experience, Bel Powley is a real talent to carry such an emotionally heavy role. Her portrayal of Minnie is authentic and memorable and she really gets into the skin of this heavily conflicted character. Compared to her performance, everyone else seems like they are just playing support roles. Alexander Skårsgard does such an amazing job playing the broken character of Monroe, torn between his love of Minnie and Charlotte. I felt like Kristen Wiig could have been better in this movie, as she definitely has the capacity to play serious roles quite well. I was disappointed that Christopher Meloni didn't have as much screentime as he should, because his performance of psychoanalist Pascal was amazingly intense and he shares a hilarious non-verbal scene with Alexander Skårsgard that had me in stitches. Both Abby Wait and Madeline Waters do fantastic jobs in their first feature roles.

While The Diary of a Teenage Girl may be confronting for a number of reasons, its rawness is really refreshing in a world of movies that are all about perfect people doing perfect things.

Man of Steel

Did you ever wonder who pays for the reconstruction of a city after superbeings have destroyed it? Have you ever wondered why people don't recognise Clark Kent as Superman with glasses? If you answered no to both of those questions, then Man of Steel is the movie for you.

After a lengthy sequence on the world of Krypton, Jor-El (Russell Crowe), a scientist, sends his firstborn child (and first naturally born child of Krypton in a thousand years) away in a spaceship due to the imminent destruction of his home planet. Meanwhile, leader of a military coup, General Zod (Michael Shannon) fails to obtain a codex containing the DNA structure and ends up getting banished to The Phantom Zone (a type of black hole).

Thirty-three years later on Earth, Kal-El (Henry Cavill), after being brought up as Clark Kent in a small town in Kansas (never referred to as Smallville in this movie), is a drifter, floating from job to job, saving people where necessary. When he hears about a possible discovery of an alien spaceship in Canada, Kent travels there and finds the ship, resurrects his father's consciousness with a key and learns about his origins.

In doing so, Kent alerts Zod, who has been searching for Kent/Kal-El, bringing him to Earth. Zod realises that Earth is a prime location for beginning a new Krypton, thus dooming this film to the Superman curse of all these films being about real estate (seriously, look it up, every superman film has a plot or subplot about real estate).

Although the plot of this film is weak, both the superb acting and striking visuals and action sequences redeem the film. Henry Cavill (The Tudors) brings a depth to Superman that was missing in Brandon Routh's hollow performance. He has a certain charm that I believe Superman should possess and there is a true chemistry between him and his Earth parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane). Amy Adams (Doubt) is the perfect choice for Lois Lane. She is believable enough to play such a strong and independent reporter to Lawrence Fishburne's Perry White.

I found Michael Shannon's (Revolutionary Road) performance as General Zod to be good, although at times I felt his character was annoying, especially at his most persistent moments. On the other hand, Russell Crowe was fantastic at playing a role made famous by Marlon Brando. His gruff Aussie accent was not out of place as the Kryptonian accent was all over the place.

Zack Snyder (director of Watchmen, 300) is great at comic book adaptions and here he does another fantastic job, especially with the backing of Christopher Nolan, fresh of the back of his Dark Knight trilogy.

The action in this movie, especially the fighting scenes between Kent and the other Kryptonians, was believable and enjoyable to watch, although as I mentioned before, someone is going to pay a lot of cash to rebuild Metropolis.

Verdict: An all in all enjoyable movie to watch despite some weak points. I look forward to see what Warner Bros is going to do with the other DC characters ahead of an Avengers-style JLA movie.