“How do I get there from here?”
As Hollywood pushes toward making gains with onscreen diversity, it seems we’ve been inundated with yearly tales of lower to middle class white teenage girls coming of age. Creeping toward market saturation, it could be tough for filmmakers to present something fresh in a subgenre with plenty of recent entries. Director Coky Giedroyc in collaboration with rising star Beanie Feldstein has avoided repetitiveness and crafted an engaging take on this story that is both entertaining and substantive.
Based on the best-selling novel by Caitlin Moran, How to Build a Girl introduces us to Johanna Morrigan (Beanie Feldstein) a shy, nerdy, 16-year-old girl who longs to find a way out of her humdrum life in Wolverhampton, England where she lives with her mother, her father Pat (Paddy Considine), brother Krissy (Laurie Kynaston) and three younger siblings. Dreaming of one day becoming a writer, she submits a music review of Annie to a group of self-important indie rock critics at the weekly magazine Disc & Music Echo on the advice of her brother. After convincing the boys club that they need a voice like hers on staff, Johanna clamors to the top of the 90s rock music scene by reinventing herself as Dolly Wilde – a venerable, impossible-to-please music critic with an insatiable lust for fame, fortune, and men. Johanna’s new fast-paced lifestyle and persona begins to catch up with her and takeover the rest of her life, forcing her to ask herself: Is this the type of girl she wants to become?
The title of this film aptly describes its thematic premise as we watch a shy, studious young woman embark upon the life’s journey we all must face as young people where we attempt to find ourselves. For Johanna, her initial step upon this path goes swimmingly as she meteorically rises to prominence as the popular writer Dolly Wilde. But that’s not to say that Johanna is without her struggles or learning experiences as her meteoric rise within the world of rock criticism coincides with a parallel rise in hubris and arrogance for our young talented writer. In building her reputation as the hot new writer on the scene, Johanna’s creation of Dolly forces her to not only abandon her principles as a writer, but give up the part of herself that contained compassion for others, particularly her family. The hateful tenor she adopts with the pen becomes her personality which she must confront once she realizes the like-minded people she has surrounded herself with as the new hotshot rock scene personality.
For a young woman Johanna’s age, or any young person her age for that matter, acceptance from your peers is everything. That this stage of life coincides with our burgeoning sexual curiosity can make for a toxic brew, which is what we experience as we shadow Johanna in this story. As Dolly gains notoriety, the once timid and overlooked bespectacled girl now has the means and opportunity to explore her sexuality which she takes full advantage of. Her experiences, however, eventually lead her down a path where she must face inevitable heartbreak and men whom she thought felt one way for her actually feeling another. Through her persona of Dolly, Johanna attempted to find validation through sexual exploration and male acceptance but found herself questioning everything she’d ever thought she’d be by the end of it. Her experience is sure to resonate with many young women that have found themselves with the attention from those they’ve craved, especially men, only to find themselves hollower and alone than they ever were at their lowest point.
Still, How to Build a Girl also carries a great message about the heights that self-confidence and resolve can take you, particularly for young women in a society that often causes them to question whether they contain either trait. The best example is a scene where Johanna turns an uncomfortable moment of sexual impropriety in the office around on her superior and uses it to instead make him uncomfortable and grant herself a wanted opportunity. It is a hallmark moment in the film showing how Johanna’s growing self-assuredness, assertiveness, and confidence has set her on a path toward achievement and accomplishment, no matter what obstacles stand in her way and also serves as an example for young women on having the confidence to stand up for themselves and demanding what they want and how they will be treated.
How to Build a Girl revolves around Beanie Feldstein in her turn as Johanna and the rising starlet does not disappoint. Feldstein gives the best performance of her young career completely transforming into a high school girl who begins as a girl lacking confidence and direction, develops into a writing wunderkind with an out of control ego who eventually collapses under its weight, only to build herself back up again. American actors tackling British characters is often a heavy lift but Feldstein becomes Johanna in totality and not only makes you forget her true nationality, but elevates what could have easily been a boilerplate coming of age tale into a compelling watch. Beanie Feldstein’s star power is on full display in this film as she boldly confirms that she has arrived and will be on our screens for a while.
Director Coky Giedroyc has crafted an exceptional film that features a great amount of humor that is well balanced with serious topics that should speak to many young women such as discovering one’s self and sexuality, and deciding who you want to be. One directorial decision highlighting Giedroyc’s skill was her use of Johanna’s “Wall of Gods” as her consciousness is an ingenious touch with the photos of figures such as Jo March, Maria von Trapp, Sigmund Freud, Elizabeth Taylor, and Karl Marx coming alive to speak to the protagonist in her moments of doubt and excitement, going silent after being covered with Johanna’s insincere writings during her time as the biting, impostor persona of Dolly Wilde, and only coming alive again once Johanna drops the act and truly realizes who she is and wishes to be. The wall itself operates as both a storytelling device and a supporting character, something that could have easily gone off the rails, but Giedroyc is able to pull off. Beanie Feldstein is fantastic, convincingly playing a teenage Brit who begins the film on one side of the personality spectrum, transforms into the polar opposite, and ends up landing somewhere in the middle. Her performance in How to Build a Girl is strong enough to cement her as a young star with endless potential, firmly on the list of ones to watch. How to Build a Girl is both entertaining and informative and well worth viewers’ time.
Image: IFC Flms
