It’s been over fifty years since Judy Blume published Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret., one of the most acclaimed yet controversial children’s novels in American literature. Acclaimed, because of it’s frank depictions of the feelings and anxieties related to girlhood puberty and conversations about religious beliefs in an interfaith context. Controversial for the exact same reasons. But of course it’s status as a perennially challenged book has become a badge of honour and it has earned a place of considerable importance and influence. Yet in the decades since it has been rare to see popular works, in books or other media, address those same themes so openly. There’s still a skittishness it seems over talking about quite literal coming-of-age facts for girls.
But lately we seem to have gotten a little more comfortable addressing things like developing bodies and menstruation in earnest, emotionally responsible ways. Turning Red from Pixar, which was a blatant puberty metaphor, and to a more mature sensibility Big Mouth on Netflix -both were received well. And so in 2023 the time is weirdly right to finally see Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. in movie form -Blume finally acquiescing to selling the rights to James L. Brooks’ Gracie Films for Kelly Fremon Craig to write and direct.
And it has been a long seven years waiting for Fremon Craig to step behind the camera again after her incredible directing debut The Edge of Seventeen -which I would still point to as the best teen dramedy of the last decade. Fremon Craig understands the complex feelings of youth like no one else working in the genre today and so it’s no surprise she’s such a natural choice to make this film. It’s a story that requires instincts of both a sensitive touch and a sharp subversiveness; a deep understanding of the characters’ emotions and anxieties, and the skills to have fun with them without delineating their validity. She walked that line perfectly on Edge of Seventeen, and does so no less perfectly on this movie -which goes a long way towards relating a critical adolescent experience.
One of her greatest assets in this is her star Abby Ryder Fortson (formerly the precocious Cassie Lang of the Ant-Man movies), who plays the curious insecure Margaret Simon with stunning believability and specificity for a part so easy to otherwise come off as outdated or archetypal. She brings forth every bit of raw angst and apprehension, fear and fun and judgment so common of every kid at that age, yet also imbues the part with that richness of character that makes for Margaret’s very particular personal conflicts. She plays her as a vivid, strongly relatable character, even for those who haven’t been through that sexual awakening. And that is ideally how a movie like this should play.
Because it does not hold back at all in the puberty department and the specific pre-teen awkwardness surrounding it. Upon moving from New York to New Jersey, Margaret’s first interaction with another girl her age is coloured by the observation her breasts haven’t developed yet and the subsequent realization she has her first crush on a boy. Over the coarse of a year, Margaret and her circle of friends are bonded over their shared anxiousness about wearing bras, getting their period, kissing boys, and just generally starting on the path towards womanhood. Fremon Craig, working off the casual nature of the novel, presents all of this with honest insight and a keen excitement around these girls’ curiosities. Most importantly, through lighthearted sincerity, she normalizes the discussions, the responses, even the uncomfortable stuff: Margaret asking her mom, played by a wonderful Rachel McAdams, to take her shopping for bras, the girls trying on pads for the first time without needing them, or even just gazing and commenting frankly on an anatomical diagram of a penis. There’s a charming openness to it all that thoroughly renders the cultural taboo absurd.
In fact, the movie derives most of it’s power not from any particulars of shock value related to this, but the real, deftly deployed personal drama -sometimes arising as a result of these bodily changes in the way they connect to Margaret’s self-image and anxieties about fitting in, how they define her friendships and peer pressure in some unhealthy ways -but it is not always the crux of focus. This is a story about her family, almost as much as it is about Margaret, and the exploration of her spiritual beliefs, as forecast by the title, hold major sway there. She’s been raised agnostic but her parents come from Christian and Jewish families respectively, her evangelical maternal grandparents having disowned their daughter for marrying outside the faith. Margaret is driven during this critical time in her life to seek religious guidance, attempting to absorb both traditions and decide for herself which to belong to. And much as the movie is playful with this, particularly in the excitement of her orthodox paternal grandmother, played by Kathy Bates, to take her to Temple while visiting her in New York, the spiritual longing she feels is taken seriously -as are the wounds caused by religion in her household. All the while, Margaret relates God to something of a personal therapist, her “prayers” a means of articulating to herself her fears and feelings and insecurities -a highly realistic, relatable impression, as coming from a former Christian kid, of how children perceive and ‘talk’ to God.
The movie flows through the span of a year in Margaret’s challenging new life with a gracefulness to match its tender writing. And I understand the movie is an exceptionally faithful adaptation -certainly Blume is in love with it. In that respect, it remains set in the 1970s, but doesn’t draw a lot of attention to it. The musical cues are rarely major hits, the fashionable styles and reference points rather downplayed -the setting just kind of exists behind the characters as cozy nostalgic atmosphere while the tethers of story and theme maintain lasting relevance. Fremon Craig’s whole approach is pretty utilitarian -her principal role is as translator of the book, which I don’t think even she would dispute. And yet the marks of her own great talent, under-emphasized by this movie’s promotional circuit, are dotted all throughout. Specific is the way she delicately structures the scenes of sexual curiosity and exploration, in consideration of their developmental significance; such as a Seven Minutes in Heaven between Margaret and the most popular boy, or her witnessing the intense stream of emotions of her friend Nancy (Elle Graham) experiencing her first period in a public restroom. She kneads the former to the first signs of maturity about boys for Margaret, and hones in the latter on that palpable disillusionment, both in Margaret’s anticipation of menstruation and in her trust in Nancy -who had claimed she’d already crossed that bridge.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is so sincere a movie that it’s easy to overlook how bold it is. How rare it is to see a movie engage with girlhood sexual development on girlhoods’ own terms, and lend real respect and validation and a supportive humour to what they are going through. This is a book that is still banned in several places, and even today and in its abundant safeness, the movie is likely to draw controversy as well from those same regions. But it is worth whatever ignorant response, and it is worth the long wait, both the fifty-three years for Judy Blume fans and the seven for us Kelly Fremon Craig fans. Maybe God was listening after all.
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