Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret Review

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is the long-awaited adaptation of Judy Blume’s celebrated young adult novel of the same name. Kelly Fremon Craig and James L. Brooks gets the opportunity to adapt the book after Blume rejected many offers for the film rights.

Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) is a sixth-grade girl who moves from New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey. Over the course of a school year, Margaret must make new friends, start to experience puberty, and questions what religion she should join.

Fremon Craig has built up a reputation as someone who knows how to tell coming-of-age stories. Her directional debut was Edge of Seventeen and she did uncredited rewrites on Bumblebee. Edge of Seventeen was a teen comedy about a girl suffering from grief, depression, and issues with her mother. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret did share some similarities to those films since it was a comedy-drama that had a focus on the parent-daughter relationship.

One of the key storylines in Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was Margaret’s relationship with her mother, Barbara (Rachel McAdams). The pair have a healthy relationship compared to the characters in Edge of Seventeen. They did things together like going shopping and Barbara helped Margaret through the pitfalls of growing up. However, Barbara questioned whether Margaret needed a bra since she was only eleven and puberty hadn’t kicked in.

There was an underlying darkness regarding Barbara’s character. During the film, Barbara revealed that her parents were evangelical Christians who disowned her for marrying a Jewish man. Because of this issue with religion, the Simon family didn’t celebrate religious holidays. This led to an important part of the story, Margaret’s spiritual journey. During the film, she prays to God in the privacy of her bedroom and her teacher sets her an assignment on religion, leading Margaret to go to religious services. Added to this, Margaret’s grandparents were trying to convince the girl to follow their religion.

When the family moved to New Jersey Barbara felt like she needed to become a stereotypical suburban mum where she would act as a housewife and join the PTA. Barbara did this so she could spend more time with Margaret but she was bored and miserable having to spend all day in the family home.

The big difference between Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret to Fremon Craig’s previous films was the age of the characters. Margaret and her school friends were younger, between the ages of eleven to twelve, and were still in Elementary School. The focus on younger characters, school issues, and the inbound effects of puberty made the film more like Big Mouth and Eighth Grade. Big Mouth was a Netflix series that focused on characters as they experience puberty and the issues young teens would experience, while Eighth Grade was about an awkward teenager as she navigates growing up in a social media age.

However, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a period piece, and it was rated PG in the UK. This meant Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a more family-friendly film. There was an innocence to the film. The milestones were small and relatable like having a crush and kissing boys. Margaret experienced peer pressure when she joined Nancy Wheeler’s (Elle Graham) group. Nancy had a bossy personality and was a bit of a mean girl. Margaret lied about the boy she fancied so she could fit in, and she followed Nancy’s ‘no socks’ rule, against the advice of her mother.

Margaret was in competition with the other girls to have puberty milestones. Unfortunately, it reminded me of an inappropriate joke from Bottom Live 3: Hooligan’s Island. Whilst the girls were wanting to start puberty there was a contradiction because they made fun of Laura (Isol Young), another girl in their class. Laura was an early bloomer and more developed than the rest of the class, leading to her being isolated.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a female-centric story. It focused on Margaret’s relationships with other girls and women. Margaret was close to her paternal grandmother (Kathy Bates), she found out more about her mother, and she had to make a new friend group. Most of her interactions were with other females and she was dealing with female issues. However, even as a man I could relate to some aspects of the film, like the perils of having an older brother and embarrassing parents.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret was a sweet, charming film that showed coming-of-age can appeal to a younger audience.