Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Adapting older source material to the screen with charming and honest effect, filmmaker Kelly Fremon Craig’s sophomore feature, Are You There God? It’s Me, Marget, delivers a poignant portrait of the life of a 12-year-old girl with sharp wit and rich sincerity. The adaptation of Judy Blume’s beloved young adult novel of the same name is wonderfully cast and well scripted, making this delicate film a notable highlight in the female coming-of-age genre, whose finest titles of the new century include Eighth Grade, The Virgin Suicides, Mean Girls, and Craig’s own The Edge of Seventeen, which was released seven years ago.

While the book was released nearly a half century ago in 1972, Craig makes a wise decision by making the film a period piece instead of placing it in the modern day. Staying true to the setting of the source material actually feels refreshing, and Craig showcases what life was like for teenagers before the day of smart phones, iPads, social media, and other forms of high technology. The film ends up being a very amusing and equally sophisticated coming-of-age story about all the awkwardness and growing pains of young womanhood. The film also has the spirit of P.T. Anderson’s Licorice Pizza due to the film’s setting and soundtrack, but it’s far less peculiar in approach and told from a female perspective. The film also offers a terrific cast of Rachel McAdams, Benny Safdie, and Kathy Bates, as well as a very impressive breakthrough performance by newcomer Abby Ryder Forston, who plays the title character with skilled naturalism and undeniable charm.

Courtesy Lions Gate

The film begins with the instant adolescent turmoil of a pre-teen having to move from New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey after her parents, Barbara and Herb (McAdams and Safdie), find a nicely furnished, livable home. For Barbara and Herb, this means fresh opportunities and the viability of being homeowners, for Margaret, it means she has to attend a new school, encounter new people, and make new friends. A lot of us have had to deal with that at some point in our childhood. For Margaret (Forston), it’s even more challenging considering she has to move away from her grandmother, Sylvia (Bates), to whom she often goes for guidance.

Upon arriving in her new neighborhood, Margaret ends up encountering another girl in her neighborhood, Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), who ends up asking her to run in the sprinklers on a very warm day. Nancy is certainly eager for puberty and womanhood; she even has her own little clique, which she welcomes Margaret to join. The rules of the clique include having to wear a bra even if the girl is flat-chested and they have to write down in a notebook the names of the boys they have crushes on. The film generates so many belly laughs, especially during Nancy’s girlhood gatherings, where she has her inner circle chant out “we must increase our bust” as Nancy persuades them that it will increase their breast size. Just as she did with The Edge of Seventeen, Craig manages the humor tastefully and hilariously, and the humor never devolves into feeling low-brow or pulls back the sophistication of the source material and writing. Within all the laughter, the film ends up getting very contemplative in tone as well.

Courtesy Lions Gate

Throughout the narrative, Margaret often prays to God, and it never feels cloying or hokey. Like the source material, Margaret has a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and she was always told by her parents that she could choose her own religion and practice it as she got older. While the film explores a lot of the growing pains of young female adolescence and periods, it also offers a thoughtful introspection on the affliction and pressure children must face from their opposing family members when they are born and raised by parents of separate faiths. The moment in the film when Barbara explains to Margaret why she never got to meet her grandparents because they disowned her for marrying a Jewish man is the most affecting scene in the film, and McAdam’s performance is so heartbreaking that you can’t help but shed a tear at that particular moment in the film.

Margaret ends up having wonderful exchanges throughout the film, both with the child actors and the grown-up parents. The film opens up themes of bullying with the character of Laura Danker (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), who has always been teased for developing quicker than her classmates. With this, she has also been accused and teased of being promiscuous, which leads Margaret to feel awful about participating in the gossip. Other strong supporting characters include Goose, (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), a friend of Nancy’s brothers who cuts her parents’ lawn and whom Margaret just happens to also have a crush on. The moments of Margaret’s teacher, Mr. Benedict (Echo Kellum), are also wonderful. He discovers she’s very conflicted about religion after she opines in a paper on how she dreads religious holidays. He understands that Margaret is attempting to sort her faith out, and he encourages her to keep researching the topic of faith for her year-end research paper.

Courtesy Lions Gate 

Bates, as always, is quite a riot as Sylvia, who plays the mother to Herb, who ends up being overjoyed once Margaret requests Sylvia to take her to a nearby synagogue on Shabbat. Safdie is also a joy as Herb, who is best known as the co-director to his brother Josh Safdie of Uncut Gems, and he superbly played Councilman Joel Wachs in Licorice Pizza, which also took place in the early 70s. Ultimately, McAdam’s ends up shining the most as her character is given a very strong arc in the film as a stay-at-home mom and artist who finds more courage to stop allowing people to take advantage of her kindness, which includes a reunion with her own parents and a local committee woman who pawns endless tasks on her.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is a candid look at young adolescence and an ode to the challenges of growing up. It’s told from a fresh female perspective, and it’s one of the most satisfying adapted screenplays as of late. Deeply moving but always genuine, sincere, and equally amusing, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret will inevitably end up becoming a beloved movie and a celebrated entry of the coming-of-age drama just like the book was.

ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET? Opens in theaters Thursday, April 27th.