A minor miracle, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. finally brings the 1970 Judy Blume novel for young readers to the big screen, as written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen). A rare, frank consideration of female puberty from the perspective of a brave and bewildered 11-year-old girl (Abby Ryder Fortson), Margaret bypasses the metaphorical magic of Pixar’s Turning Red for something straight from the feminine hygiene aisle in the drugstore (where one of the movie’s funniest scenes takes place). Add the good-faith exploration of the religious question of the title (Margaret is left by her parents, played by Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, to choose whether she wants to be Christian, observantly Jewish, or nothing at all) and you have a movie that takes the roiling interior life of a tween seriously, while also allowing itself the occasionally sly smile of a knowing adult. That latter element distinguishes the film from Blume’s book, where the great strength was the first-person tunnel vision of its sardonically naive sixth-grade narrator. Yet even as I wish that element had been preserved, it’s hard to blame this Margaret for being too . . . nice. (Plus, Fortson’s sweet, flabbergasted face is a gem, whether she’s watching an instructional video on menstruation at school or dealing with a department-store clerk who is skeptical about her need for a bra.) The movie’s wider perspective also opens up opportunities for strong work by McAdams, who adds welcome layers to Margaret’s mother, and Kathy Bates as Margaret’s voraciously loving grandmother. The filmmaking itself is fairly straightforward, though I do appreciate the choice to make most of Margaret’s prayers audible in voiceover, often blurring together with other action in the scene or even competing with something she’s saying out loud. That sort of scatterbrained faith isn’t unique to childhood, which is another way Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. works for both young audiences and adults.
(5/18/2023)
