Girl Most Likely: Beanie Feldstein rocks her charm in somewhat safe "How to Build a Girl"

How to Build a Girl (2020)

102 min.

Release Date: May 8, 2020 (Digital & On Demand)

More than just a gender-reversed “Almost Famous”—Cameron Crowe’s great 2000 semi-autobiographical film when he was a teenage rock music journalist for Rolling Stone in the ‘70s—“How to Build a Girl” is, likewise, a “true-ish,” semi-autobiographical coming-of-ager about a rock critic in the ‘90s. Directed by Coky Giedroyc and written by Caitlin Moran, the film, based on Moran’s 2014 novel, isn’t really interested in the music as much as it is in a sometimes pedestrian journey to self-discovery and trying out different versions of oneself with a few tailspins along the way. Through it all, breakout star Beanie Feldstein, such a winning presence in 2017’s “Lady Bird” and 2019’s “Booksmart,” is the film’s disarming, spunky rock. 

The Caitlin Moran figure is quirky, awkward 16-year-old Johanna Morrigan (played by Beanie Feldstein). She lives in her imagination to break out of her working-class life in 1993, Wolverhampton with her overwhelmed mother (Sarah Solemani), aspiring-musician father (Paddy Considine), and four brothers. The Morrigan family’s flat is so small and overcrowded that Johanna must share a bedroom, separated by a partition, with her gay brother Krissi (Laurie Kynaston). Jumping in glee when winning a writing contest and the opportunity to read a poem on TV, she bombs out of nervousness. In a funk but still hoping to make something of her writing talent, Johanna works up the guts to submit a music review of “Tomorrow” from the “Annie” soundtrack to a weekly rock magazine. When she isn’t taken seriously at first, Johanna decides to reinvent herself with the offbeat firebrand persona “Dolly Wilde” in cherry-red hair and a magician's top hat. As the gig calls for her to be invited to concerts and then interview swoon-worthy Welsch rocker John Kite (Alfie Allen), Johanna-as-Dolly begins to realize that being nice won’t get her anywhere. 

“How to Build a Girl” does dare us not to always like the protagonist, allowing Johanna as Dolly to be cruel, too big for her britches and undergo, as her teacher puts it, a “delinquency phase.” Aside from it taking time for one to accept the jarring sound of her otherwise solid British accent, Beanie Feldstein is an absolute joy, throwing herself into the role with enough charm and charisma to make us invest in Johanna Morrigan's story. Much of the film hinges on Feldstein’s performance, as the script seems to skip a few beats, but Feldstein believably carries Johanna’s arc from a daydreaming wallflower to a famed, breadwinning, more outspoken and unapologetically confident sexual-adventurer to adopting more of a middle ground in the end. Though shuffled to the side, the supporting cast gets a little shading here and there, particularly Alfie Allen as John Kite, and it’s always a thrill to see Emma Thompson, even for a one-minute cameo. 

One whimsical flight-of-fancy touch that surprisingly works is Johanna conversing with and receiving advice from her inspirational heroes in photos on her bedroom wall, including Sigmund Freud (Martin Sheen), Emily and Charlotte Bronte (Sue Perkins, Mel Giedroyc), Sylvia Plath (Lucy Punch), and Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp (Gemma Arterton). This device could have been grating, but it’s never used to excess and the influential figures are well-cast. “How to Build a Girl” happens to be a little safe and standard as a portrait of such a brash, unique go-getter, but it is quite a fine showcase for the effervescent Beanie Feldstein.

Grade: B -