The Diary of a Teenage Girl

"I had sex today. Holy s***!" That's the first line in debuting director Marielle Heller's ground-breaking coming-of-age comedic drama. Explicit but never exploitative, it's based on the novel by Phoebe Gloeckner that dares to tell of Minnie (Bel Powley of TV's Benidorm), a smart 15-year-old girl who wants to have sex but fears it will never ever happen. A tricky topic but credible, especially in San Francisco in 1976, where Minnie's mother Charlotte (Kristen Wiig) parties hard and dates the simplistic 35-year-old Monroe (Alexander Skarsgård). Sleeping with Monroe is only the first step in Minnie's rollercoaster of reality as she follows her instincts - some good, some awful - but, crucially, learns from her mistakes. Powley, Wiig and Skarsgård turn in powerful, finely observed performances in this sensitive, entertaining explosion of honesty.