Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 106 minutes
Release Date: April 28th, 2023 (USA)
Studio: Lionsgate
Director(s): Kelly Fremon Craig
Writer(s): Kelly Fremon Craig / Judy Blume (book)

Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?

There aren’t many adaptations of Judy Blume’s work (at least not yet with a few currently on deck). Even so, it feels weird a book as seminal as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. only just now hit the big screen fifty years after its publishing. Give the author credit for not simply cashing in on selling the rights straight away. She has every right to protect the sanctity of the material and it just goes to show how good a pitch writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig and producer James L. Brooks delivered to finally earn the right.

The filmmaker’s previous work The Edge of Seventeen (it’s wild Craig hasn’t made anything since considering the acclaim) surely played a huge role in that decision—the care in which it depicts a complex mother/daughter relationship and the experience of teenage struggles proving she understood the importance of emotional authenticity. It should be no surprise then that this one excels in much the same way.

It’s a faithful transition from page to screen both in content and context (I read the book for the first time a couple months ago). All the best funny, awkward, and courageous moments of Margaret’s (Abby Ryder Fortson) year of upheaval (moving from NYC to the NJ suburbs, having her first crush, reaching puberty, flirting with religion, etc.) are there along with a welcome expansion of Mom’s (Rachel McAdams’ Barbara) own complicated journey from art teacher to stay-at-home PTA fundraiser recalibrating her needs and desires.

The latter is a crucial update that adds a new level of drama by allowing us to fully understand Barbara’s place in Margaret’s life beyond just another supporting role. So much of the plot starts with her that it deserves the added depth to make the whole a three-generational example of unconditional love within a world too often ruled by conditions (rounded out by Kathy Bates’ Grandma Sylvia).

That theme follows through Margaret’s daily life at school thanks to new BFF Nancy (Elle Graham, who is phenomenal in a complicated role that perfectly balances obnoxiousness and insecurity). To whom is Margaret giving her trust and how are they manipulating or exploiting it? How does that push out further when you think about Sylvia’s quest to make Margaret Jewish (her parents, Benny Safdie plays Dad, raised her without religion so she can choose herself) or Barbara’s parents’ demand that she be Christian (one change I didn’t love is the softening of just how single-mindedly selfish these two characters were in the book)?

The underlying premise of the film is Margaret deciding to pray for the first time in her life and see what God (any God) has to offer before discovering she’s really just talking to herself. Not that that’s nothing, though. We sometimes need that intention to work through what it is we want outside of what others want for us.

This sense of initiative and autonomy is the real draw regardless of medium and Blume does a great job letting it evolve naturally. She lets Margaret put her foot in her mouth (letting rumors about Isol Young’s Laura Danker color interactions instead of actually talking to her) and be a sheep (agreeing with Nancy and their “secret society” about boys at school despite having a crush on Aidan Wojtak-Hissong’s endearingly charming Moose instead) before recognizing the error of her way through consequences rather than lectures.

The Simon women find themselves by using just those societal “norms” they need to be happy, throwing the rest away with authority and zero regret. It’s that sense of agency that makes this coming-of-age tale so universal and necessary—enough to reach beyond gender and/or experience. And if it also helps normalize traditionally taboo topics like menstruation for immature boys (and men) in the audience, all the better.

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Rachel McAdams, Benny Safdie, and Abby Ryder Fortson in ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.; courtesy of Lionsgate.