Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023)

Rating: 8.6

TL;DR - Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is a perfect movie. It’s the definition of delightful and charming! Kelly Fremon Craig deserves to be talked about on the same level of Greta Gerwig, crafting a genuine, grounded coming of age story that combines the essence of 6th grade, puberty and awkwardness all into one! Plus Abby Ryder Fortson is a triumph and will become your new favourite star! I loved this movie!

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Film Info:

Premise: Eleven-year-old Margaret moves to a new town and starts to contemplate everything about life, friendship and adolescence. She relies on her mother, Barbara, who offers loving support, and her grandmother, Sylvia, who's coming to terms with finding happiness in the next phase of her life. Questions of identity, one's place in the world, and what brings meaning to life soon brings them closer together than ever before.

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Lionsgate

Written for the Screen & Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig

Based on the book by Judy Blume

Cast: Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Benny Safdie, Elle Graham

Runtime: 1hr 46min

Rating: PG

Comedy, Drama

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IMDb Rating: 7.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 99%

RT Audience Score: 95%

RT Critic Average: 8.5/10

RT Audience Average: 4.7/5

Metacritic Score: 85

CinemaScore: A

Letterboxd: 4.0/5

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Fun Fact: First published in 1970, the novel Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume is considered a children's classic. It has never been out of print since its initial publication; in 2010, Time Magazine put it on a list of the 100 best novels published since 1923, and in 2012 it made Scholastic Parent & Child Magazine's list of 100 Greatest Books for Kids. However, starting almost from its first publication, it has long also been one of the most challenged and banned books in America: parents, administrators, and politicians have often tried to get the book removed from school libraries and reading lists both because of its honest examination of puberty and menstruation and because it depicts a girl who is given the freedom to decide for herself what religion she is interested in adhering to.

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Review:

written by Tyler Park

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret might just be the biggest surprise of the year for me! I went in not expecting much, but came out floored at how truly good this movie is! Frankly, it is a perfect film! I was watching trying to find some sort of flaw to critique, but before I knew it, the movie swept me up in the story and I forgot about everything else. The movie is the definition of charming and delightful… I loved how earnestly it handled its subject matter! Kelly Fremon Craig crafted such a genuine, grounded coming-of-age film that combines the essence of adolescence, puberty, and the awkwardness of it all. I know a lot of the credit story-wise does have to go to Judy Blume for her iconic book, but this was just an excellent adaptation of Blume’s book. I couldn’t have imagined a better film!

Between this and Kelly Freeman Craig’s first film, The Edge of Seventeen, she has developed a knack for telling really honest, heartfelt coming-of-age stories. The subjects of her movies are treated with respect and intelligence no matter their age, and what’s special about this movie is that it tells a story that is quite an ordinary year in the life of an eleven-year-old. Margaret doesn’t have to navigate complex hardships such as grief, nothing overly terrible happens to her, and yet the movie is still exciting and compelling because we are brought so deeply into her life. Craig also gives us opportunities to recognize parts of Margaret’s adolescence as our own. I definitely related to the awkwardness of being eleven, and I loved that the film bathes in this pre-teen awkwardness and even embraces the cringe of it all at times. I also found it really impressive that 50 years after the original book was published the themes and conversations in this movie still feel like they are refreshing and needed in this day and age. It openly discusses periods, adolescence and seems to have the same power that Judy Blume’s novel does: it has the power to make young girls feel less alone in their struggles growing up.

But this movie isn’t just for young girls — everyone can enjoy this movie! And I’m living proof! I’m certainly not the target audience, and yet I still loved the film and thoroughly connected with its story. It’s a really warm, heartfelt experience; I teared up a few times and laughed a lot! I think it works for so many people because it really does a good job of making a point that everyone is constantly trying to figure out life. We all have our struggles, and we all have our expectations of what life should be like. And this movie does a great job of tapping into that. It excellently explores the many expectations that we have for what life is supposed to be like, for example like what getting your period is supposed to mean, to how religion operates in life and in family dynamics. I found these discussions really engaging and so real. I loved it.

The beauty of this film (and the Blume novel) is that many issues are discussed while Margaret questions everything. She has conversations with God about when she will become a woman and doesn’t know if she will be Christian or Jewish. As she talks to God, Margaret has an identity crisis in middle school. Her parents are Christian, and Jewish decided not to raise her in either religion. On top of feeling far behind the other girls, as all girls do when waiting to become a woman, Margaret does not have a community to call her own. She struggles with the idea that maybe someone in the universe isn’t listening in to help her because she isn’t getting what she wants as quickly as she would like. There is this perfect balance that Blume and Fremon Craig achieve in this film that has all these issues Margaret’s facing woven together.

But not only do we see Margaret struggling, but we see her mother, Barbara, played by Rachel McAdams in what I think is her best performance to date, struggle with the decision she has made. She was raised a devout Christian, and her parents disowned her because she fell in love with Herb, Benny Safdie’s character, who was Jewish. She never saw her parents again. Once she moved to New Jersey, she felt lost and even gave up her teaching position to stay home and help Margaret with the adjustment. She didn’t anticipate Margaret finding a group of friends so quickly. So Barbara feels alone in the house as she is left with her thoughts about the current state of her life. We also see her grandmother Sylvia attempt to handle her loneliness because her family moved away. Fremon Craig and Blume subtly create a layered generational story that shows we all face our own struggles, no matter who we are or what stage of life we are in.

Kelly Fremon Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret adaptation is up there with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. It’s that good! Faithful to the source material with really clever modern touches and on top of that, it’s impeccably cast. I know I mentioned Rachel McAdams who is indeed great here, but the true standout is Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret. She is a triumph, delivering a phenomenal performance that was so grounded and relatable, blowing McAdams, Safdie, and Bates out of the water. She was fine as Cassie in the Ant-Man films, but here she proves herself as a true rising star! This whole movie was just so freaking good — I couldn’t believe how much I was loving it! I highly recommend this relatable and well-made coming-of-age movie, just give it a chance! It will definitely surprise you!

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Trailer: