‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’ Is a Coming-of-Age-Movie Masterpiece
When was the first time you realized you were a woman? Was it when you got your first period? Was it when you had your first heartbreak? Was it when you were in ninth grade and the unibrowed kid on your school bus wouldn’t stop calling you a slut, despite the fact that at that point you’d barely even kissed a boy yet, so you dumped a chocolate milkshake on his head, and the history teacher in the row behind you not only made you clean it up, but also apologize to him, and in retrospect you see that as the first but by no means last moment you would be forced to prostrate yourself in front of assholes to get them to acknowledge your humanity?
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, the long-awaited film adaptation of the iconic young-adult novel by Judy Blume, is a repository of such small moments of humiliation unique to the female experience. The book itself is a standard coming-of-age story, albeit a nuanced and empathetic one that deals with complex themes such as religion, bigotry, and slut-shaming, in addition to the standard preteen hijinks of buying sanitary pads in front of a cute pharmacy clerk. But in the hands of director Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret isn’t just about adolescence — it’s about the state of womanhood in general, with all of the accompanying sacrifices and vexations and humiliations that come with it.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is largely told through the eyes of Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson), a thoughtful, half-Jewish sixth-grader in 1970 whose tiny universe is upended when her family relocates from New York City to New Jersey. At perhaps the worst possible time in her life, she’s forced to navigate the travails of adolescence — mean girls, training bras, crushes on mean boys with floppy hair — against the backdrop of the stultifying suburbs, without her doting yet overbearing grandmother to offer support (Kathy Bates, who frankly struggles to convincingly say l’chaim, but is otherwise excellent in the role).
Margaret occupies a cringeworthy liminal space that is immediately familiar to anyone in the audience: young enough to sleep with stuffed animals and still want to hang out with her parents, but old enough to want to fill out a training bra and make out with the adorably Jewfroed boy who mows the lawn next door. Director Craig has a keen eye for imagery that evokes this period, interspersing shots of carefree youth (giggly girls eating s’mores with braces), with foreboding indications of anxieties to come (desperate to fit in, Margaret eschews socks on her first day of school, and Craig’s lingering on her resulting blisters will be familiar to any woman who has sacrificed comfort for footwear).
But Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret has less to say about adolescence than it does about the humiliations of womanhood in general, in large part due to the casting of Rachel McAdams as Barbara, Margaret’s relentlessly kind and supportive yet deeply frustrated mother. In the book, Barbara plays a minor, albeit sympathetic, role; in the film adaptation, that role is expanded tremendously.
Just as her daughter is struggling to conform to the stifling demands of adolescence in suburbia, Barbara, an aspiring artist, is navigating her own difficulties with settling into the role of suburban wife and mother, burning roast chickens to a crisp and driving herself insane volunteering for PTA committees. She is also dealing with her alienation from her own devout-Christian parents, who disowned her for marrying a Jewish man (an adorably afroed Benny Safdie), as well as the overbearing Sylvia.
The expansion of the role of Barbara can in part probably be attributed to McAdams’ star power, but it also enables those who grew up on Blume’s books — many of whom are now mothers, if not grandmothers — to identify with another character, who lives in a world where the stakes are much higher than whether other girls will think you’re a dork if you wear socks. McAdams’ immaculate performance elevates the role even further. The word “incandescent” is one that film critics have tended to apply to her (it shows up in at least three reviews of this film alone), but it’s fairly apt; with her beachy waves and wide smile, she appears onscreen as if she’s lit up from within, impeccably telegraphing the frustration of a winsome artist relegated to cutting out paper stars for a PTA fundraiser. When she finally tells a bouffanted housewife she doesn’t want to sign up for any more committees, it feels like nothing short of catharsis; after all, “I don’t want to do that” is the phrase every mom dreams of being able to say.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret takes place in a time period free of Instagram and TikTok and all those other corrosive influences on adolescent mental health; for this reason, it’s hard to say whether the source material will resonate with actual adolescents nearly as much as it will for nostalgic millennials and Gen X’ers. But in Craig’s hands, it’s become something far more nuanced and interesting than mere bildungsroman anyway. Even though the film itself is as apolitical as it gets, watching it, it was hard not to think about the current far-right-driven discourse about gender identity and what actually constitutes womanhood in today’s culture. Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret makes that answer clear: It’s about humiliation and sacrifice and being trained in the art of pretending, whether you’re filling your bra with socks to appear more curvaceous or trying to be content with cutting out paper stars when all you want to do is paint a masterpiece. It’s about how little questions about whether to wear socks or making the perfect roast chicken take up the space of bigger ones, about sex and religion and family. Being a woman is defined by many things, but chief among them is how much it sucks. Judy Blume knew that better than anyone, and so does this movie.