Carrie Pilby has plenty to say about Camus, Kierkegaard, and Hobbes, but the 19-year-old Harvard graduate can’t make small talk to save her life. “There’s a perfectly good reason I don’t have any friends,” Carrie tells her therapist in a newly released trailer for “Carrie Pilby.” “Friends are people, and people are dishonest, disingenuous, and let’s face it, not that smart.”
Directed by Susan Johnson, “Carrie Pilby” sees “The Diary of a Teenage Girl’s” Bel Powley playing another precocious, rebellious young woman. While she always excelled in school, Carrie struggles to adapt to life in the world outside of academia and finds herself lagging behind her peers. She seeks refuge from the outside world — which she’s convinced is full of oversexed hypocrites — locked up in her apartment.
“You and I are going to come up with a list of goals you’re going to achieve between now and the end of the year,” Carrie’s therapist (Nathan Lane, “Modern Family”) tells her.
After reluctantly agreeing to the assignment, Carrie enters the world of dating and the job market. The spot for the dramedy shows some of the trouble she gets into, including following up on a personal ad placed by a “single white male, engaged and confused.”
“I love that Carrie is a strong, intelligent, and funny young woman, but completely flawed like the rest of us. Just when she thinks she has it all sorted, reality slaps her in the face,” Johnson told Women and Hollywood. The director identified funding as the biggest challenge in making the film. She explained, “Our story is centered on a female protagonist, written by a woman, produced by extremely successful female producers, and helmed by a first-time female feature director making the transition from producing. Getting people to pay attention to us was much harder than it should have been.”
Based on Caren Lissner’s best-selling book and adapted for the screen by Kara Holden (“Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life”), “Carrie Pilby” hits theaters March 3. A digital and VOD release will follow on April 4.
