How to Build a Girl

Director: Coky Giedroyc
Year Released: 2019
Rating: 0.0

Lonely teen Johanna (Beanie Feldstein ... with an accent), who dreams of dating a whole variety of guys and lives in a run-down part of town with her poor parents and brother, gets lucky and lands a job as a rock reporter for a music magazine, changes her name to "Dotty Wilde," and takes makeup and clothing tips from Johnny Depp in Alice Through the Looking Glass.  Generally speaking these teens-discovering-themselves type of movies tend to be mediocre-to-average, making a decent point now and then, and some are quite insightful (in my view) but this is so conceited and obnoxious it actually becomes offensive: "Dotty," no matter how crude or repulsive she acts, is always magically rewarded for her behavior, and those she stridently harms just seem to forgive her for no real reason at all (she actually exposes a musician's secrets because he won't sleep with her).  Also: were there no young British actresses left in existence to play the lead?  None?  Really?  Did anyone even look around?