"The Diary of a Teenage Girl," opening Friday, is set in San Francisco.
The film is based on a 2002 book of the same name by author Phoebe Gloeckner, a graphic novel loosely based on an experience she had while she was a 15-year-old high school student at the private Urban School in San Francisco in 1976.
That year, she began sleeping with a man who was dating her mother, keeping the experience hidden until using it as the inspiration for her book, Gloeckner told SFGate.
The film stars actress Bel Powley as the book's protagonist Minnie, Kristen Wiig as her mother and Alexander Skarsgard as Monroe, the man in the scandalous triangle. Locales across San Francisco were utilized in the 24-day shoot.
Gloeckner admitted to Jezebel that the film is much lighter than the book — and than the film she would have made herself: "I would’ve made it pornographic, very dark, emotionally wrenching. Like, 'AUGHHH!'"
