Memories of a Teenager (2019)

Memories of a Teenager feels special because it captures adolescence the way it actually lives in your body: messy, electric, contradictory, and impossible to summarize cleanly. Framed through Zabo’s blog entries in post-crisis Buenos Aires, the film moves with a stylish, dynamic pulse—part restless coming-of-age diary, part snapshot of a scene—where music, parties, and classrooms all blur into the same search for footing. It’s often surprisingly fun in its momentum and immediacy, even as it carries real weight, letting grief and desire coexist without turning either into a lesson. Fair warning: suicide is central and the intimacy is candid, but if you’re open to a raw, empathetic look at confusion and self-discovery, this one hits with the sting and clarity of a memory you didn’t know you still had.

Memories of a Teenager is clearly trying to capture that raw, messy early-2000s adolescence—grief, identity, and desire—through the immediacy of a personal blog and a specific Argentine cultural moment. The problem is that its handling of suicide and tragedy can feel more like a dramatic framing device than a carefully explored reality, which may strike some viewers as insensitive, romanticized, or emotionally simplistic. If you’re looking for a nuanced, responsible depiction of suicide and its fallout, this might leave you frustrated or even upset. Still, if you can tolerate its rough edges, there’s an earnest coming-of-age energy here, with a candid look at sexual questioning and the confused intensity of being a teenager.