The Diary of a Teenage Girl features an open-minded sexual awakening, but it is complicated by happening via an affair. As Minnie, Bel Powley is refreshingly frank and straightforward in bringing to life female sexual desire. But it is hard to be thrilled by her story. She is sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend, and she is way too immature and insecure to deal with the situation. This puts the viewer in a fundamentally vexing position, wanting to cheer the sex positivity but recognizing the harm in the main relationships.
Then there’s Christopher Meloni as Minnie’s ex-stepfather Pascal. He remains in contact with Minnie and her sister, disapproving of the bohemian San Francisco lifestyle their mother (Kristen Wiig) is raising them in. He is a straight edge, but there is a slight ironic veneer to Meloni’s performance. He likes to keep it cool, but he can lose his patience, and when he does so, he is amusingly insane. That is to say, he is not too far removed from his Wet Hot American Summer performance.
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