Are you there God? It’s Me Margaret film review: Frank and witty coming-of-age experience

Are you there god it`s me margaret movie poster

Are you there God? It's Me Margaret
U/A: Coming of age
Dir: Kelly Fremon Craig
Cast: Abby Ryder Fortson, Rachel McAdams, Kathy Bates, Benny Safdie, Elle Graham, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Amari Price, Landon S. Baxter, Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, Isol Young
Rating: 3/5

Kelly Fremon Craig's fairly faithful adaptation of Judy Blume's landmark young adult novel "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," about 11-year-old Margaret reluctantly having to navigate new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence, is a succinct elaboration of the coming-of-age story. It's been more than 50 years since the book was first published, and in those early days, the book even faced a ban. In the current scenario where every form of education on the body and self is available via the internet, this film adaptation by writer and director Kelly Fremon Craig might seem a bit tame, sanitised, and bloodless. Thankfully, the script is both witty and frank in its appraisal of an 11-year-old girl's candid experiences and confessions.

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Margaret's (Abby Ryder Fortson) reluctance to move to New Jersey with her parents is because she does not want to feel like a fish out of water. All her friends, her grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates), and the familiars are in New York, and she is unwilling to venture out of that secure zone. That's when you see her communicating with God. "Please don't let New Jersey be too horrible," Margaret whispers to God as her family packs up for their new abode. Given that her parents, Jewish father Herb (Benny Safdie), and Christian mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams), have wiped out religion from their lives, it's a wonder that she believes in God, though.

Margaret is invited by her new neighbor Nancy (Elle Graham) to join her in a secret club along with fellow 6th graders Gretchen (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) and Janie (Amari Price). Nancy's brother Evan (Landon S. Baxter), his friend Moose (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong), and pretty boy Philip Leroy (Zackary Brooks), whom all the girls crush on, have a peripheral role to play in this dramedy that walks us through friendships, peer pressure, the pain of lies, and the power of being true to oneself.

Margaret's coming-of-age journey is not only biological but also social and religious. Margaret has to research religion for a year-long class assignment and, in the process, learns some hidden secrets about her own family. In Blume's book, Margaret tells her friends why she has no religion, but in the film, it's a little different. She asks her mother, and Barbara explains how her marriage to a Jewish man caused a rift with her devout Christian parents.

Rachel McAdams gives an emotionally charged performance as Barbara, the stereotypical overworked mom who gives up her Art teaching job to be available to her child. Kathy Bates is scintillating as the opinionated Grandmother Sylvia, and above all, it's Abby Ryder Fortson's emphatic, magnetic, and charming turn in the title role that conveys preteen angst effortlessly and lends this film its seminal power!