In 1970, Judy Blume’s eponymous novel Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was published. The book, a grounded curtail pull on teenage sexuality, was met with indignation by certain literary factions of the USA, going as far as banning the book in certain states over it’s discussion of menstruation and ambivalence to the pull from religious bodies. But like all good art, the book that was once censored persevered, and found a beloved audience who have championed it to this day for its authentic and candid look at puberty. Those same praises that the novel received can also be attributed to Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation of the same name, as she directs this mostly faithful, endlessly charming coming-of-age delight.
The film follows Margaret for a year in 1970, as she traverses sixth grade. That messy diaspora of being an 11-year-old girl includes getting her first bra, navigating a crush and when will she finally get her period so she can be the mature adult she craves to be. The pre-teen also spends time conversing with God. Which religion’s God she is speaking to doesn’t matter as her father Herb (Benny Safdie) was raised Jewish, and her mother Barbara (a superb, feisty Rachel McAdams) was raised Christian, fragmenting her religious identity. Both her parents are disillusioned with religion and they raise Margaret with the notion that she can choose when she’s old enough, which lends itself to Margaret's desperation to grow up. By starting every conversation to the deity with the titular question of “are you there god?”, she is trying to get an answer to the very question that is hidden in plain sight, and find out why her lack of religious affiliation - much to the chagrin of her respective grandparents - feels so important to work out, and if she even needs the religion that everyone else seems encumbered by.
In Craig’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the tribulations of burgeoning puberty and religious dubiety are experienced through the eyes of 11-year-old protagonist Margaret Simon (A breakout Abby Ryder Fortson, who in a just world would now be set to be a future star). Having just moved to New Jersey from New York, leaving behind her extended Jewish family of grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates), she has to make new friends. Margaret, like most of her peers, is on the cusp of puberty and everyone around her seems to be further developed than she is and those friends she makes are both helpful guides to her future womanhood, and embody the kind of toxic immaturity that comes from jealous teenagers.
Margaret is 11, though, and her one-sided prayers to the sky are all about her own angsts rather than that of the world around her. Perhaps this is selfish, especially as the perspective of the film is from the myopic lens of a white, privileged 11-year-old whose only concern in life is of her own. But that tunnel-visioned outlook on life from Margaret never feels like it detracts from the film, of which oozes the same irresistible charm that Craig’s previous coming-of-age film Edge of Seventeen had. This especially comes from Fortson’s performance, who manages to perfectly encapsulate that pre-teen angst of wanting to be treated like a mature adult.
One such scene is where Margaret attempts to discuss her grandparents, those from her mother’s side. Her mother, Barbara shrugs the question away at first, before silently realising that Margaret is actually mature enough to know the truth. Barbara reveals the religious differences behind the estrangement between her parents and the religiously diverse family they didn’t want to be part of. In a change between the book and the film, this scene is added to help explain why Margaret has never met them, helping to further show the conflict within Margaret’s religious identity crisis.
This religious predicament that Margaret finds herself in never feels didactic in what moral teachings its discussing, but it definitely feels dated. The novel was published in 1970, where less than 5% of Americans stated they had no religious affiliation. Whereas now, through that same American census, those who have no affiliation hover around 29%. The film is set 53 years prior to its cinematic release, and at the time of the books publishing and release, it was so controversial because it was rare. Without that same recherché, the film’s religious discussion instead just feels like a history lesson on a time gone by as the movie feels slightly stuck in its own sense of time capsule purgatory.
Through some fantastic production design, a brilliantly buoyant pop soundtrack, and a stern unwavering hand on being as empathetic as possible to female adolescence from Craig - who also wrote the screenplay - this joyous gem brings Judy Blume’s classic novel vibrantly to life. In a world that continues to struggle with female sexuality, reproductive rights and religious freedom, this is both a breath of fresh air - one that lifts the curtain to help demystify what it means to be a teenager - and an indictment on the American people that the novel’s lasting tenure as a pre-teen bible that breaks taboos hasn’t quite impacted society in the way it should have done.
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