Based on a very popular book by Judy Blume, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. might be aimed more at girls of a certain age, and all the women who can remember what they were going through at that time, but it should also appeal to everyone who has gone through their own awkward moments as they navigate the path through childhood into the turbulent teen years. Anyone unable to empathize with the events that unfold here is someone you should probably give the side-eye to.
Abby Ryder Forston plays Margaret, a young girl who has her life turned upside down when her parents (played by Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie) move from the city to the suburbs. Margaret misses her grandmother (Kathy Bates), but she quickly makes one or two new friends (mainly Nancy, played by Elle Graham). Attaching your loyalty to someone so fully though, as children are wont to do, can lead to problems when you realise their imperfections. To make things a bit more complicated, Margaret is also starting to wonder about her potential religious faith. Her mother is Christian, her father is Jewish, but neither pressure Margaret into making a choice. It feels like something she wants to explore though. When she’s not thinking about boys and the strange experience of wearing a bra.
Directed, and adapted from book to screen, by Kelly Fremon Craig, this is a delight from start to finish, thanks to the warm and rounded characterisations, the identifiable life events used as main touchstones, and the full journey that we watch the main characters take.
It helps that the cast is so perfect, giving the kind of performances that either establish firm love for well-known faces or create an instant fanbase for the relative newcomers. While it’s odd to see McAdams now playing the mother figure, she’s great at being an understanding parent who tries to maintain a balance between being cool and being a reliable role model. Safdie has a bit less to do, but pairs up brilliantly with McAdams to provide a picture of an enviable marriage. Bates has the easiest role, she’s the gran who agrees with her granddaughter that the change in circumstances isn’t good. Forston is a delight in the lead role, playing her part with a natural style that would have been far too easy to set aside in favour of exaggerated emotions. There are exaggerated emotions, because everything feels life or death at that age, but Forston presents them exactly as any young girl would in real life. Graham is also very good, and becomes part of a talented ensemble of younger actors including Amari Alexis Price, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Simms May, Zack Brooks, and Isol Young.
While I am not familiar with the source material, unlike so many others who will be keen to see the movie, I appreciate that Craig made something that strings together a number of vignettes into something that feels so focused and still containing a firm narrative arc. A lovely soundtrack helps, there’s a nice selection of period detail in the fashions and furnishings, and the whole thing is just like a big hug, something I wasn’t sure I actually wanted until I was smiling while in the midst of that cinematic embrace.
8/10
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I'll admit I read the book twice back in grade school. I probably couldn't remember it well enough to compare it to the movie if I watched it.
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