Trailer: Beanie Feldstein in ‘How to Build a Girl’

Based on the bestselling novel by Caitlyn Moran (who also wrote the screenplay), How to Build a Girl follows Johana Morrigan (Beanie Feldstein) a bright, quirky, 16-year-old who uses her colorful imagination to regularly escape her humdrum life in Wolverhampton and live out her creative fantasies.

Desperate to break free from the overcrowded flat she shares with her four brothers and eccentric parents, she submits an earnestly penned and off-beat music review to a group of self-important indie rock critics at a weekly magazine. Despite being brushed off initially, Johana 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. It isn’t long before the rapid pace at which Johana’s life is changing becomes overwhelming and she runs face-first into a devastatingly real, existential crisis: Is this the type of girl she wants to become? Or does she need to start over and build again from the ground up?

How to Build a Girl is directed by Coky Giedroyć and produced by Debra Hayward, Alison Owen, Bonnie Chance-Roberts. It co-stars Alfie Allen, Paddy Considine, Chris O’Dowd and Emma Thompson.

IFC Films will release How to Build a Girl in theaters and on demand May 8, 2020. Here is your first look.