Being a teen girl is a weird space to occupy. It’s like being trapped in an unyielding vortex where you’re treated like an adult, and an infant in the same breath. Diana Sanchez’ How to Build A Girl is a story about one 16-year-old taking her destiny in her own hands. She does this in the face of fear, trepidation and the world telling her she’s not worthy of her own agency. Historically, girls have shouldered more responsibilities than boys both in and out of the household. Because of the sexualization of the female body and sexism– we’re often silenced, shoved to the side or locked away. How to Build A Girl is about self-liberation.
Set in the ’90s, the film is based on Caitlin Moran’s semiautobiographical novel and follows 16-year old Johanna Morrigan (Booksmart’s Beanie Feldstein). Witty, imaginative and a bit boy crazy, Johanna longs to break free of her working-class English town, and her loving but dysfunctional family. With her gay brother/ best friend, Chris, her wanna-be rockstar dad, her school-age little brother, and her postpartum depressive mother whose recently given birth to twin boys, Johanna feels forgotten about.
She continually bullied at school, and she spends time daydreaming and writing. However, Johanna knows in her gut that she is destined to do more. It’s a self-assuredness that most teenage girls cling on to despite the world’s determination to stamp it out of them. Desperate to get out of Wolverhampton, and in need of money to help her family, Johanna applies to be a music writer for a London-based magazine.
It’s clear from the beginning that Johanna has a gift for the written word. However, she knows less than nothing about rock n’ roll. In addition to being a rock novice–Johanna has internalized every negative thing that has been said about her. Determined to be someone “better,” she reinvents herself into the vivacious and sometimes cruel, Dolly Wilde. The very opposite of Johanna–Dolly takes pleasure in cutting down others and being sexually insatiable.
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Image: Toronto International Film Festival.