Are You There God,
It's Me, Margaret
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Year: 2023
Rating: 7.0
I guess we all have our coming of age stories.
I just don't remember mine. Did I have one or did the years just slip by
so unobtrusively that I didn't notice? Nothing stands out as defining it.
Thus, much of this film felt as foreign to me as the dark side of the moon.
It is wonderfully sweet. innocent and poignant but in truth too intimate
for me. I felt like I was peeping in on the life of an eleven year-old girl
going through changes and it made me uncomfortable to be there. I wanted
to look away at times. Which is I suspect the purpose of the film. Anxiety
begins really young in us. The other day I was waiting in line at a bakery
and I noticed a small girl of about three start to look around for her mom
and she couldn't see her and I could just see the fear build up. I was like
where the hell are you mom? The kid was panicking and had no idea what to
do. Cry of course. I felt helpless. And then it turns out the mother is in
the line in front of me and the child had not seen her. Phew. But it made
me wonder if for many of us this is the first instance of anxiety in our
lives. Where we first learn about it and integrate it into our emotional
range. When our parents were absent. And from there it just grows, layer
after layer. Margaret, the protagonist of this film is constantly adding
layers of worry and anxiety about growing up, friends, periods, bras, breasts,
guilt, religion. It can be overwhelming to an 11 year old but most of us
come through - learn how to cope - but it never goes away. Just waiting below
the surface.
It's the 1970s. Margaret and her parents
(Benny Safdie and an absolutely terrific Rachel McAdams) move from Manhattan
to the Jersey suburbs. Margaret loved life in Manhattan and dreads the move
but the film doesn't fall into Woody Allen land and make fun of the suburbs
- it is just different. She quickly adapts and becomes part of a four-girl
clique who talk about girly things - boys, penises, breast size and menstruation.
For some mysterious reason they all want to begin menstruating. A sign that
you are a woman. Except of course you are not. This is based on a novel
written by Judy Blume in 1970. You could never set this in contemporary times.
It is a different world for girls now fraught with peer-pressure, sex and
social media.
Margaret often talks to God. It never answers.
Her father is Jewish and her mother Christian. They have left it up to her
to decide someday if she wants to be either or nothing. Her prayers to God
are ones a teenage girl might have if you are not Joan of Arc. Please grow
my breasts faster, bring on my period. She tries going to Temple and is bored,
she goes to church and finds it long. God never speaks to her. A one-way
conversation. The film takes place over a school year and the events are
episodic in nature but it is all held together by three wonderful performances.
First as Margaret is Abby Ryder Fortson
who is pitch perfect and with her innocent brown eyes is very sympathetic.
Rachel McAdams as mom hits just the right notes as a mother protective and
understanding but with her own desires too and Kathy Bates as the fierce
grandmother on the Jewish side is what you want a grandmother to be. The
love between her and Margaret is one of the strongest aspects of the film.
About 20-minutes into this I honestly wanted to turn it off because I just
didn't want to spend time with 11 year old girls but I stuck with it and
am glad I did. Makes me glad once again that I never had children. I would
do all the wrong things.
