Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
In Kelly Fremon Craig’s bold, nostalgic and touching film, Margaret moves to New Jersey for the first time – and has to navigate both sex and God.
Period piece: Rachel McAdams and Abby Ryder Fortson
Margaret Simon is not sure about God. Her father is Jewish, her mother is Christian and the one thing she’s learned about religion is that it makes people fight. Margaret is eleven-years-old and she’s about to start sixth grade – in New Jersey, of all places. It’s a new start, a new school and for some bizarre reason, Margaret’s parents are leaving the bright lights of New York City behind. What’s a girl to do? She may have to think about growing up, but not in the way that her new bestie, Nancy Wheeler, has in mind… Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. is quite shocking, but not in the way that, say, the Netflix phenomenon Sex Education is. It’s shocking because it’s so old-fashioned, unpretentious and straightforward, reflecting the world view of its young, uncomplicated (and heart-warming) protagonist. Because not only is Margaret Simon eleven-years-old, but she’s eleven-years-old in the year 1970.
The secret ingredient to the film’s success is probably the guiding hand of its producer James L. Brooks. It was he who directed the Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News and As Good as It Gets, but here he’s entrusted the directorial reins to Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), who was once an eleven-year-old girl herself. However, the voice at the heart of the film belongs to Judy Blume, on whose semi-autobiographical 1970 novel the film is based, adapted by Fremon Craig herself. There’s little drama of the kind encountered in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 or John Wick: Chapter 4, or even in Book Club: The Next Chapter, but the film’s intimate, unfussy perspective of the traumas of growing up, of what it means to teeter from the cusp of innocence headlong into teenhood, is rendered very dramatic indeed through the eyes of Margaret. After all, it’s her looming development and it is, literally, a life-changing thing, to which we are privy (on an almost day-to-day basis).
Central to the film’s triumph are the performances. As Margaret’s mother, Rachel McAdams brings just the right amount of buoyance and gravity to Barbara as she navigates the cracks in the social pavement of suburbia, to which her untutored daughter is prey. Kelly Fremon Craig has also coaxed unbridled turns from Margaret’s peer group, although it’s Abby Ryder Fortson herself, as Margaret, who makes the film such a resonant and delightful experience. Directing children is hard enough, but guiding them into brassieres and sanitary napkins at such a sensitive age must take supernatural tact.
The obstacle course of childhood is never simple, either for the parent or its leading player – but it was a good sight easier in 1970 than it is now. Our treacherous age is seeing the bereavement of untold species, natural habitats and ice cover, but the loss of childhood, in its own way, is a forfeiture just as perturbing. However, Margaret’s loss of innocence is a nostalgic predicament, something that today’s generation of eleven-year-olds will be unable to comprehend.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Rachel McAdams, Abby Ryder Fortson, Elle Graham, Benny Safdie, Echo Kellum, Kathy Bates, Amari Price, Katherine Kupferer, Isol Young, Kate MacCluggage, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Mia Dillon, Gary Houston, Zack Brooks, Simms May.
Dir Kelly Fremon Craig, Pro James L. Brooks, Julie Ansell, Richard Sakai, Kelly Fremon Craig, Judy Blume, Amy Lorraiine Brooks and Aldric La'auli Porter, Screenplay Kelly Fremon Craig, from the novel by Judy Blume, Ph Tim Ives, Pro Des Steve Saklad, Ed Nick Moore and Oona Flaherty, Music Hans Zimmer and David Fleming, Costumes Ann Roth.
Gracie Films-Lionsgate.
105 mins. USA. 2023. US Rel: 28 April 2023. UK Rel: 19 May 2023. Cert. PG.
