Critic Reviews
69
Metascore
Generally Favorable
positive
19(73%)
mixed
7(27%)
negative
0(0%)
Showing 26 Critic Reviews
May 7, 2020
88
Based on Caitlin Moran’s semibiographical novel, How to Build A Girl is a wickedly funny, sweet and vibrantly told coming-of-age story that feels like a teen classic in the making.
Sep 11, 2019
80
As fun as a night in the mosh pit with your best mate ... Directed by Coky Giedroyc with a fizzy vibrancy and supercharged by Feldstein's intense charisma, this crowd-pleasing comedy has smart things to say about class, sex and female identity.
May 7, 2020
80
Like a stone skipping on water, How to Build a Girl leaps from raunchy to charming, vulgar to sweet, earthy to airy-fairy without allowing any one to settle. Yet it’s so wonderfully funny and deeply embedded in class-consciousness . . . that it’s tonal incontinence is easily forgiven.
Jul 30, 2020
80
It’s a credit to Feldstein that the wobbliness of her Wolverhampton accent never comes between us and her character. Instead, we simply get on board with her adventures, accepting her for what she is – however odd that may sometimes sound.
May 8, 2020
78
Still, it takes a special someone to sell this larger-than-life character onscreen, and to make you forgive how the galloping script glosses over some crucial beats.
Sep 10, 2019
75
The nerd’s coming-of-age is a well-established genre, as is humiliation comedy, yet Coky Giedroyc’s How to Build a Girl is different enough to stand out.
May 6, 2020
75
Adapted by Caitlin Moran, from her own semi-autobiographical novel, it’s both a dead-on take on what it’s like to be a young critic as well as a smart movie about class and 1990s culture.
