Caitlin Moran’s career kicked off like a power chord. At 17, the rock critic prodigy who’d grown up broke in a Wolverhampton council flat with four brothers and her parents’ illeg…
rampages througg high school hallways and nightclubs like she’s terrified that if she stops moving, she’ll be stuck. How else can she avoid turning out like her mom , corpse-tired at 38 with an infant twin on each breast, or her dad , a never-was musician who still dreams of making it with his solo band, Mayonnaise?
The film’s fairy-tale first half is magical. Feldstein plays Johanna such like a cartoon princess that it seems natural when the magazine clippings on her wall come to life to give her advice. Skipping toward the train for a job interview in London, she ignores the pathetic details of her life, like the missing “N” in the sign for Wolverhampton. Later, after she’s flubbed that first meeting, a poster of Björk calls out to her, “Rooms like that need girls like you.
Giedroyc’s portrait of young female sexuality is refreshingly cheeky. Yet, the film’s giggles nearly eclipse Moran’s larger point, which is, as she put it in an interview, “to stop women going out with f–king asshats.” Still, it’s lovely to see how cinematographer Hubert Taczanowski captures the emotions of Johanna’s first serious crush. When she meets skinny, shabby troubadour John Kite , flower petals fall from the ceiling.
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