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

Score: 4.5 / 5

Regretfully having never read Judy Blume's landmark source material, I went into this movie having no idea what to expect. My sole reasons were its casting -- and, admittedly, a curiosity about the title, the hype around which I never heard more than people praising it vaguely -- and so its story and ideas took me completely by surprise. And, really, maybe that was the best way to experience it. So if you know nothing or very little about Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret, I'd recommend you stop reading after this paragraph. Its early scenes piqued my interest, and before long I was laughing and weeping aloud in the crowded cinema alongside others of all ages doing pretty much the same thing. This is the kind of communal family drama that I'd recommend to everyone everywhere, especially for group viewings.

In case you don't know or need a refresher, the story is essentially a bildungsroman for young Margaret Simon, living in New Jersey in the 1970s. She has not been raised within any organized religion, having interfaith parents; her Jewish father and Christian mother want her to determine her own religious identity when she's older (at the start of the film, she's eleven, if my notes are to be trusted). Things reach a dramatic climax when her grandparents -- her emotionally and socially intimate Jewish paternal grandmother Sylvia as well as her estranged Christian maternal grandparents from the Midwest -- all arrive for spring break and clash catastrophically, each attempting to inculcate their religious practices. But Margaret isn't only beset by matters of faith, family, and culture: she's also a middle school girl suddenly transplanted from New York City to suburban New Jersey, navigating friendships and flirtations with peers whose bodies and hormones are changing by the day. She learns in rapid succession about everything from periods to bras, and wishes more than anything that she'd "grow up" as quickly as some of her classmates.

It's a beautiful story, rich in both complexity and nostalgia, frank but delicate in its forthright attention to the subject matter. Even in our jaded age, it says a lot about the source material and the filmmakers that not a single scene feels uncomfortable or out of place (to clarify, there are indeed some uncomfortable encounters in the plot, but even the difficult scenarios are handled with grace, understanding, and even some levity by the filmmakers). We never once doubt the sincerity of these characters, and that's incredibly rare these days, even in family-friendly comedies. That has a lot to do with Blume, surely, but here I'll praise writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig for her endlessly insightful and accessible work. I suspect, but admittedly don't know, that Craig's adaptation includes new material in her scenes dramatizing the inner life of Margaret's mother Barbara (played by a magnificent Rachel McAdams). Her character was the one I absolutely did not expect to take such a central role, and I was tearfully glad to be wrong.

Although the film is set in 1970 or so -- and its production design, costumes, and acting are all gobsmackingly pitch-perfect -- it spoke to me in surprising ways and made me feel nostalgic for my own childhood in the '90s. The neighborhood Margaret's family moves to is not dissimilar from where I grew up in western Michigan, and I remember a lot of similar conversations with friends (though naturally fewer talk of periods and bra sizes with my friend group of boys) on warm spring days of running through lawn sprinklers. We, too, had our not-quite-secret clubs and hideouts, learning tough lessons of honesty, trust, peer pressure, curiosity and its cost, and personal authenticity. Early on, Margaret meets her new friend's brother's friend, a neighborhood boy and hardworking lawn-mower nicknamed Moose, who has started growing hair under his arms; the camera shifts suddenly to Margaret's perspective as she notices it and realizes he's maturing in ways that are exciting to her rather than annoying. That seems a fairly universal moment of realization, and this film puts us right back in that mental state; we know her crush on Moose will take probably the whole film for her to process and accept, and indeed it does.

There are countless moments like this that combine earnestness with good-natured humor -- the girls attempting to exercise to grow breasts while chanting "I must, I must, I must increase my bust" is a pure delight -- that never once makes fun of the kids. It showcases how silly and cruel kids can be in their most raw and honest interactions, but never treats them exploitatively. It's a tightrope of tone, one that Craig handles with what would seem to be veteran mastery, though this is only her sophomore directorial work. Similarly, even when Margaret's parents or the other adults around her act in, shall we say, nearsighted ways, it's not out of malice or neglect so much as another form of earnestness, one that speaks to our understanding that these characters are all just trying to learn, do right, and be well in harmony with each other. It's an overwhelmingly refreshing view of adulthood and humanity that I did not expect and haven't seen on screen in some time.

Rachel McAdams, as I said, is magnificent in this film. Benny Safdie capably plays her husband, Herb, but the movie belongs solely to McAdams and the utterly brilliant titular protagonist, played by Abby Ryder Forston, who deserves awards for this performance. I've said Forston is one of the best working child actors since I first saw her in 2014 (Transparent, The Whispers, and of course the first two Ant-Man films), and she is absolutely making a big name for herself as a young woman now. Yet for all this, I was most surprised and delighted by the presence of Kathy Bates in this film as Herb's mother Sylvia. Bates's always reliable and reliably brilliant talents are here heightened to full scene-chewing panache in a character almost tailored to her skill set, though of course she clearly works hard for spontaneity and vivacity in every moment.

With an unexpectedly sharp focus on the three generations of women (paternal grandmother, mother, and daughter), a curious theme emerges that doesn't fit the mold of bildungsroman but informs it in fascinating ways: that of how one's parenting behaviors affect the development and identity of their children. I suppose we saw some similar things in Boyhood, too, though that narrative was worlds away from this. Barbara is just as much a fish out of water as Margaret, dramatized handily in scenes that depict her giving up her art teaching career to become a suburban housewife and school mom run ragged by the PTA. There's some of this, too, with Sylvia (who I think is widowed, but could also be divorced or a staunch Auntie Mame type woman, I'm not sure if the film tells us) clearly devastated when her son and granddaughter move out of the city. Their relationship certainly isn't that of a helicopter or have any shades of codependency, but she struggles with her purpose and aim without her family nearby, and that's something all three women will need to navigate moving forward.

It's an amazing film altogether, full stop. I found myself wondering often what might happen if we had slightly more access to the characters' internal lives, specifically their opinions about each other. Their mutual love is palpable, certainly, and the actors clearly have lots of strong reactions and feelings about various events, but I'd have liked just a bit more open dialogue between them at crucial moments, such as when Margaret's best friend gets her first period and her mother reacts stiffly and awkwardly, or how Margaret must feel about Barbara's attempted reconciliation with her apparently anti-Semitic parents. Then again, these brief but significant moments of mystery will be the things that keep me coming back to this film in thought and during re-watches, so maybe they're important as they are.