THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: Maddie Ziegler Grapples With Self-Acceptance in Trailer for Janelle Monáe Executive-Produced Film ‘Fitting In’
December 22, 2023
Based on director and writer Molly McGlynn's own life, the coming-of-age tale explores one teen's experience with understanding her gender and sexuality after discovering she has MRKH syndrome.
Maddie Ziegler, on the heels of her starring role in HBO Max’s teen drama The Fallout, stars opposite Reservation Dogs‘ D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai and Schitt’s Creek‘s Emily Hampshire in a new kind of coming-of-age tale, Fitting In.
In this trailer for the semi-autobiographical story based on Grown-ish and Grace and Frankie director Molly McGlynn’s own adolescence, Ziegler portrays Lindy, a 16-year-old who is just like any other teenage girl. She fantasizes about losing her virginity to her crush Adam (Woon-A-Tai) and wants to act on her sexual desires.
But when her mother Rita (Hampshire) takes her daughter to get birth control, a visit to the gynecologist leads to an unexpected discovery: Lindy has MRKH syndrome, a rare congenital disorder resulting in an underdeveloped vagina with a small or absent uterus.
As Lindy learns to accept that her journey into womanhood looks different from her peers’, she attends an LGBTQAI+ support group, where she begins to explore her sexuality with the help of new friend and love interest Jax (Ki Griffin).
In a statement shared with Teen Vogue, McGlynn said, “Making Fitting In was my way of reclaiming parts of myself that I never had or were taken away. I wanted to ask big questions about identity and our bodies without knowing all the answers because only those living in their body can say what it is or what it isn’t. Watch it and think, but laugh too because finding humor in the absurd is how I survived the horror of learning to accept the body I’ve been given.”
The film, which is executive produced by Janelle Monáe, premiered at SXSW in March 2023 under the title Bloody Hell. It will arrive in theaters on Feb. 2, 2024.
