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dweemeister · 10 months

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

According to the American Library Association, there were over 1,200 challenges to remove library books or resource materials from an American school or public library in 2022. It was the highest number since the ALA started collecting data in 2003 and about half of these challenges result in a restriction or full removal of that text from circulation. Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. was one of the most frequently challenged books in the United States from its publication in 1970 through the 2000s due to its discussions of spirituality, girls’ sexuality, and menstruation. The recent book banning headlines in America tend to feature novels that have LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists and/or prominent secondary characters who are non-white in tales surrounding racial relations. These contemporary debates might make the fury surrounding Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. seem quaint, in a culture far removed from the present. However, Blume’s book (and the debate surrounding it) remains relevant more than fifty years after its publication.

Perhaps it might surprise non-readers that Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (henceforth, I will use simply Margaret in italics if referring to the book) is a gentle coming-of-age film in an environment sorely lacking such works right now. The lack of overly precocious children with a cynical wisecrack for every situation has few relations among its raunchy relatives of the last few decades; so too the absence of the meta humor and period-specific jokes of John Hughes’ (1984’s Sixteen Candles, 1985’s Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) movies. That cynical precociousness and audience-winking, period-specific humor could easily have appeared in Margaret if Craig, who also wrote the screenplay, made too many deviations from the source material. With Blume’s guiding hand as a producer, Craig’s as writer, and an enjoyable ensemble performance – especially Abby Ryder Fortson as Margaret – this is a worthy adaptation and entry into the American coming-of-age film canon.

Returning home to Brooklyn from a New England summer camp, eleven-year-old Margaret Simon (Fortson) is upset to hear that her parents Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Herb (Benny Safdie) are soon to move to suburban New Jersey, leaving grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates) alone in New York. Shortly after arriving at the Simons’ new home, Margaret befriends eventual classmate Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), and her friends Janie Loomis (Amari Alexis Price) and Gretchen Potter (Katherine Kupferer). Through the school year, the girls will gossip about their classmates, talk about boys who catch their interest, bras, changes to their bodies, and more – the manner of their conversations, for middle school-aged characters, are unusual to see in films, let alone in literature. Meanwhile, their teacher, Mr. Benedict (Echo Kellum) assigns a yearlong research project to all. Noting Margaret’s answers on a getting-to-know-you assignment, he suggests looking into religion. That’s a touchy subject in the Simon household. Mother Barbara comes from a Christian family; father Herb from a Jewish family. Due to furious disagreements with Margaret’s grandparents, neither parent actively practices religion, nor have they imposed religion upon Margaret (she is free to choose when she “grows up”). Despite this, Margaret communicates to God on occasion about her hopes and concerns. Through the school year, Margaret will learn more about herself and religion, mostly on her terms.

Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret. also stars Isol Young as Laura Danker, a girl who is the target of nasty words because of her early puberty; Aidan Wotjak-Hissong as Margaret’s sort-of crush, Moose (I certainly hope that is a nickname); Landon S. Baxter as Nancy’s brother, Evan; Zackary Brooks as slick-haired handsome boy/shmuck Philip Leroy; and Kate MacCluggage as Mrs. Jan Wheeler (also PTA President). Mia Dillon and Gary Houston play Margaret’s maternal grandparents.

In terms of approach and tone, this is as finely-tuned a literary adaptation as there could be. Blume’s Margaret, slender as it is at under two hundred pages, is episodic by necessity and structure, often employing time skips of several days or a few weeks into a new chapter. Craig’s Margaret does so as well, but brief montages and editing from Nick Moore (1997’s The Full Monty, 2005’s Nanny McPhee) and Oona Flaherty ease the transitions – fully exemplifying one advantage motion pictures have over prose. The period detail in Margaret firmly grounds it in 1970. Together, the costume design by Ann Roth (1985’s Places in the Heart, 2021’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom) and production design by Steve Sakald (2005’s Thank You for Smoking, 2021’s Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar) transport the viewer to that period.

This adaptation contains a refreshing lack of major deletions from the original novel. All of the book’s important episodes, exchanges, ideas, and tender wisdom are in the film, and none of the secondary cast have been short-changed. If anything, the only notable alteration from Blume’s novel is the addition of a subplot for Rachel McAdams’ Barbara. Within this cast, McAdams is easily the most bankable movie star at present (with apologies the wonderful Kathy Bates, but her character is not as central to the narrative), which may have been the justification for this decision. Nevertheless, the subplot – which revolves around Barbara joining the school’s parent-teacher association (PTA) and volunteering for multiple committees – seems unnecessary, sidetracking from Margaret’s point of view (and Blume’s book is entirely written in Margaret’s voice). Thankfully, Barbara’s PTA experience does not have much screentime and always quickly reverts to Margaret. That the filmmakers did not fully trust Abby Ryder Fortson to carry an adult audience’s attention for the film’s entirety is disappointing, regardless of McAdams’ solid performance, as she needs to be the true star of this film.

Audiences may know Abby Ryder Fortson best as Cassie Lang from Ant-Man (2015) and its 2018 sequel. In her first film as the lead, Fortson is brilliant. She embodies Margaret’s guardedness and anxiety when first moving to New Jersey, especially in juxtaposition to the overly confident Nancy. Fortson also capture Margaret’s earnestness, as well as a few scenes of cruelty and thoughtlessness – crucially, Margaret’s worst moment feels plausible, and never seems as if the behavior is coming from some other character entirely. However, Craig’s screenplay, due to its inability to stay firmly in Margaret’s point of view, underserves her in the film’s final act when her maternal grandparents arrive. By no fault of Fortson’s, the film does not delve deeply enough into how Margaret feels about her maternal grandparents’ estrangement and attempts to reconcile with her parents. Fortson can only do so much in lending Margaret a mix of bafflement and uncertainty in these scenes in arguably the most emotionally charged scenes of the film. Here, the film is torn between Margaret’s feelings about her maternal grandparents and parents’ disagreements and how parental decisions can impact children for the rest of their lives. It achieves neither.

I have never been a teenage girl, nor was I raised in an environment where any of the Abrahamic religions were even tangentially part of my life (let alone being part of an interfaith family). Judy Blume probably did not have someone like me principally in her mind when she wrote her book. But in Margaret, I saw a glimmer of the past that I imagine many of you will see for yourselves, too. The incredible awkwardness of being a pre-teen is probably something you, the reader, would probably like to keep half-forgotten. Rare is the film that can summon those feelings: of wanting to grow up (and quickly!), only to realize that those milestones that we associate with maturity are perhaps not as earthshaking as we imagined them to be. True maturation is more elusive than what Margaret and her friends envision. Religion, the passage of time, and sexuality cannot confer it. And some grown-ups never quite discover that. Fortson, through her performance, and Craig’s screenplay deliver on all of this, even if Fortson herself might not realize it yet.

At eighty-five years of age, Judy Blume has had a modest cinematic renaissance this year. Her books, fixtures in American children’s and young adult literature, have curiously not often been adapted for television or film. But with this film and the documentary Judy Blume Forever premiering at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, that appears to be changing. On the television front, Netflix is currently in production on an adaptation of her young adult novel Forever… (another Blume work often finding itself on most banned/challenged book lists); also in the pipeline are TV adaptations of the Fudge series for children and the adult book Summer Sisters. For the New Jersey-born-and-raised Key West, Florida native, conversations about her legacy are underway. Despite her unassuming persona and the gentleness of both Margaret and its film adaptation, Blume has been a vocal critic of Florida’s recent Parental Rights in Education bill (also known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill) and requirements to review books based on state guidelines mostly over gender identity, race, and sex. No surprise for an author who has been the target of book bans from almost the beginning of her career.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. arrives at a time when coming-of-age movies are, at least among the major and mini-major (such as Lionsgate, which distributed this film) American movie studios, no longer perceived as commercially viable for theatrical exhibition. Coming-of-age movies must be packaged within a superhero movie or tied to a franchise in order to find its way to American cinemas. The creative and financial heads of the superhero cinematic universes claim that their narratives can encompass genres/subgenres such as coming-of-age or political thrillers or historical epics, but their approach and distributional dominance precludes non-superhero affiliated films of such genres/subgenres from appearing in theaters in the first place. Their influence makes the existence of this film’s theatrical run – despite its apparent failure to find much of an audience beyond those who have read the book (non-readers of certain political stripes probably mistakenly thought this was a faith-based film from the evangelical Christian film industry or already knew about the book’s reputation and refused to see it) – a minor miracle.

Director Kelly Fremon Craig has worked on a coming-of-age film before surrounding a female protagonist in The Edge of Seventeen (2016). But Margaret – for its remarkable faith to the source material, engaging performances, and meticulous period detail – is an achievement surpassing that. Craig’s sensibilities as director and writer suit the film, and Fortson’s performance elevates it to the level of the most universal American coming-of-age movies.

My rating: 8/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog. Half-points are always rounded down.

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

#Are You There God? It's Me Margaret #Kelly Fremon Craig #Judy Blume #Abby Ryder Fortson #Rachel McAdams #Kathy Bates #Benny Safdie #Elle Graham #Amari Alexis Price #Katharine Kupferer #Kate MacCluggage #Aidan Wojtak-Hissong #Landon S. Baxter #Echo Kellum #Zackary Brooks #Isol Young #Mia Dillon #Gary Houston #My Movie Odyssey

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jackolanternteeth · 1 year

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Are you there god? It's me Margaret. Some of the cast, basically.

#The last one is a stretch but I think it's funny #are you there god? it's me margaret #dream daddy #mary christiansen #rachel mcadams #tobey mccallister iii #tobey wordgirl #simms may #whf #we happy few #npc #Kate MacCluggage

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stuff-diary · 10 months

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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

Movies watched in 2023

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

Director & Writer: Kelly Fremon Craig (based on the book by Judy Blume)

Mini-review:

Oh, I loved this! I must admit I never got around to reading the book, but after watching the movie (I've heard it's a very loyal adaptation), one can easily tell why it's widely regarded as a classic. It portrays puberty in a really frank and straightforward way, but also with a lovable dose of warmth. As for the cast, Abby Ryder Fortson is an absolute star and she will have a brilliant future, there's no doubt about that. And the rest of the kids are also fantastic! It honestly surprised me how good they all were. And of course, with names like Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates in the cast, you already know the adult cast will deliver too. Their performances are as amazing as usual. Pitch perfect casting, for real. Last but not least, the period setting is beautifully recreated through the sets and the costumes. Anyway, Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. is a lovely addition to the coming of age genre and will probably end up being considered a classic, just like the book.

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letterboxd-loggd · 11 months

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Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023) Kelly Fremon Craig

June 10th 2023

#are you there god? it's me margaret.#2023 #kelly fremon craig #abby ryder fortson #rachel mcadams #kathy bates #benny safdie #elle graham #amari alexis price #katherine mallen kupferer #kate maccluggage #echo kellum #isol young #aidan wojtak-hissong

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akultalkies · 11 months

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Abby Ryder Fortson, Kathy Bates, Rachel Adams, Benny Safdie, Elle Graham, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Amari Alexis Price, Kate MacCluggage, Landon S. Baxter, Aidan Wojtak Hissong, Echo Kellum, Simms May, Isol

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milliondollarbaby87 · 1 year

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

When her family moves from the city to the suburbs from New York to New Jersey, Margaret who’s 11 years old must navigate new friends, feelings and the impending start of puberty. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Continue reading Untitled

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rookie-critic · 1 year

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Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. (2023, dir. Kelly Fremon Craig) - review by Rookie-Critic

This movie really charmed me. I was, of course, aware of the book's existence and of Judy Blume in general (I had read the Fudge series of books in elementary school), but I'd never read it. So I had no idea what I was going into when I went and saw this a couple days ago. It turned out to be a lovely story that tackles female puberty, female identity, and complicated family dynamics in terms of religion in a very candid and unashamed way. It's a coming-of-age film that actually feels like our central character does just that; a year in the life film where we feel like our protagonist has gone on a journey and come out the other side of it changed. Not in some grand, high-stakes, movie way, but in a very human way. In a way that only a year of life experiences at that age could change you.

In the film, Margaret is a girl on the verge of entering the sixth grade, and is being forced to move from the bustling streets of New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. From there the general things happen: she makes new friends, learns things about life and womanhood she was previously unaware of, has big talks with her mom (played by the always wonderful Rachel McAdams) about grandparents she's never met, and just exists as a pre-teen girl in 1970s America. Nothing particularly mind-blowing happens in the film's runtime, but the beauty of this story comes from all of the subtle changes and things that happen. The conversations with her new friends, her first crush, her curiosity about Judaism and Christianity as a result of being raised in non-religious household, and the culmination of all of these things as they shape the person you know Margaret will turn into as an adult as a result of these experiences.

I think what impressed me just as much as the main storyline with Margaret is how well embodied her mom is as a character. McAdams' Barbara Simon feels almost as important as Margaret and the story tries hard to show how the trauma of her parents affected her, and how much her and her husband Herb (a big, sweet doofus played by Benny Safdie) are trying to keep the stressors and potential trauma of extreme religion off of their daughter. It's wild to think of parents that are that supportive and progressive existing in that era of American history, but it's also a very refreshing to see an example of positive and affirmative parenting on screen. The deft hand with which directory Kelly Fremon Craig (whose previous film, The Edge of Seventeen, I also loved) handles religion in this is impressive. The condemnation of extreme devout-ism while not shunning the concept of personal faith away entirely is a bit of thin tightrope walk, but Craig and the entire cast walk it beautifully. Allowing Margaret to talk her perception of God on her own terms and the exploration of how that word means something different to everyone (if it means anything to them at all), and how all of those different meanings are ok, is a wonderful message to send. This is just one of those movies that, try as I might, I can't find a single thing to complain about. It's lovely, it's life-affirming, and it's a wonderful film for everyone, man, woman, young, old, and everything on the spectrum in-between, to enjoy. The most effortlessly great film so far this year.

10/10

Only in theaters. Also, the soundtrack is front-to-back bangers, and the costume design department on this film deserves a ton of praise, because all of the outfits in this were cute as hell.

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randomrichards · 1 year

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ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET:

Moving to new home

Margaret examines her faith

Longs for puberty

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popentertainment-moviereviews · 1 year

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ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET (2023)

Starring Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Elle Graham, Benny Safdie, Kathy Bates, Echo Kellum, Isol Young, Amari Alexis Price, Katherine Kupferer, Kate MacCluggage, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Landon Baxter, Mackenzie Joy Potter, Olivia Frances Williams, Michael Platarote, Simms May, Zackary Brooks, JeCobi Swain, Eden Lee, Naida Nelson and Tahirah Harrison.

Screenplay by Kelly Fremon Craig.

Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig.

Distributed by Lionsgate Films. 106 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Judy Blume seems to be going through a pop culture resurgence. Just last week Judy Blume Forever, a documentary on the life and career of the author who pioneered young adult novels, started spreading through towns across the country. Now, after 53 years, we have the release of a film based on what is arguably Blume’s most beloved book, the sweet and refreshingly frank coming-of-age story Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has been a standard of school curriculums and a favorite of young girls for decades. It is a smart and funny look at growing up in the 1960s, trying to figure out all the important things in life for tween girls – religion, family, puberty, friendship, boys…. And, for better or worse, I have never seen a film which spent so much time subtly contemplating menstruation.

The film version is helmed by writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, who has surprisingly been pretty much missing in action since 2016, when she released yet another fantastic coming-of-age film for young women, the original narrative The Edge of Seventeen.

It turns out that the mix of Judy Blume and Kelly Fremon Craig is a potent one, because Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is a delight. It is an intelligent, empathetic, humorous and not the least bit patronizing look at childhood.

Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is a twelve-year-old girl in the midst of a lot of upheaval. It is the late 1960s (I’d say about 1968, on a guess.) Her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie) have just moved from her beloved New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. She’s left behind her friends and now must negotiate a new school. She misses her beloved grandmother (Kathy Bates) and her home.

And she’s not sure how she feels about her new friends, particularly Nancy (Elle Graham), who thinks she knows everything about everything, but deep down may just be a scared and mean little girl.

The film looks at Margaret’s search for faith – her dad is a lapsed Jew; mom is a lapsed Catholic. They have always contended that Margaret will decide on her own religious beliefs when she is ready – much to the disappointment of the grandparents. She is also negotiating junior high school (that’s middle school now) politics and whether or not the boy down the street is cute and likes her.

It's a simple story of growth, and yet it’s also layered and complex. Even the so-called villains (we’re looking at you, Nancy) are just confused and scared of what is coming at them way too quickly. And none of these kids, particularly Margaret, can just sit back and enjoy just being children, instead rushing growth that they will eventually come to all too soon.

Young Abby Ryder Fortson is a wonderful center to the story, and McAdams and Bates are delights as mom and grandmom.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret isn’t trying to answer all of the questions of childhood and puberty, but it is a sweet and nostalgic look at the journey to young adulthood.

This movie was worth the long wait.

Jay S. Jacobs

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#Are You There God? It's Me Margaret #2023 #Movie Reviews #Rachel McAdams #Jay S. Jacobs

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