Based on the novel of the same name by Laura Kasischke, ‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ is US independent movie-maker and arch provocateur Gregg Araki’s new movie.

Shailene Woodley stars as a teenager, whose life is thrown into chaos when her mother disappears. Though the subject matter is dark, she said it was fun going back in time.

“Doing a movie in the late Eighties was so exciting. You would show up and the juxtaposition between living in 2014 with all this technology and all the things we have now and going into a film where the basement didn’t have a giant TV and didn’t have a stereo – there wasn’t those distractions,” said the 22-year old actress.

Described as “a coming-of-age drama wrapped in a sunny, Southern California film noir” the movie represents a departure from previous roles for Woodley, not least because of the nude scenes – something she says wasn’t a big deal.

“She’s very real, very open and just very much herself,” said director Gregg Araki.

“For me, nudity is a very real thing, we all shower every day, we all have bodies, and sex is a very real thing. To see a movie that deals with those topics with such grace in a way, such normalcy and with such truth and such a grounded nature, it was really nice. These kinds of movies don’t exist that often in America because there is such a taboo against sex, which I think is so strange, here, versus in Europe where it’s a very common theme,” said Woodley.

While Woodley and Eva Green – who plays her mother – have received praise for their performances, the movie has opened to mixed reviews with one critic calling it an “underwhelming teen thriller”.

‘White Bird in a Blizzard’ is out now in the US and on global release from November.