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Film review:How to Build a Girl

This adaptation of Caitlin Moran's novel is flawed but fun - and Beanie Feldstein shines, says Linda Marric

July 23, 2020 14:29
Beanie Feldstein in How to Build a Girl
2 min read

Beanie Feldstein puts in an outstanding turn in charming new coming of age comedy How To Build A Girl. Adapted from Caitlin Moran’s best selling novel of the same name, the film is written by Moran herself - with help from author John Niven - and directed by prolific TV director Coky Giedroyc (Penny Dreadful, The Killing, Harlots).

In the early 1990s,  Johanna Morrigan (Feldstein) a bright, quirky 16-year-old uses her vivid imagination to escape her humdrum life on a Wolverhampton council estate  by living out her creative fantasies. Desperate to move away from the overcrowded flat she shares with her siblings and eccentric parents, Johanna submits a music review to a weekly rock magazine - think NME or Melody Maker - and is over the moon when she’s invited to the offices for an job interview.

Having initially been brushed off by the publication’s mostly male writing staff and management, Johanna later secures a weekly column writing about gigs and up-and-coming indie bands. While her earnest and mostly positive reviews are mocked by her peers, the teenager starts writing scathing reviews which soon get her noticed by indie rock fans.

With any literary adaptation by the its original author, there is always a fine line between trying to stay true to one’s original text and the risk of being too precious about said text to allow the film to stand on its own two feet.  Here, Moran who is undeniably a great writer and fantastic storyteller, sadly fails to replicate the same sense of teenage angst and jubilation which ran so beautifully through her book.