Blume classic gets wise, funny, moving movie book deserves
At the end of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the hugely rewarding film version of Judy Blume’s 1970 classic book, the characters played by Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams have just shared a momentous moment, through tears and laughter, in the family bathroom.
The depth of feeling in this scene isn’t what you find in most commercial movies, certainly not most coming-of-age films made in America. Watching Fortson go through every push-pull and emotional swerve as 12-year-old Margaret, with McAdams unerring in the newly expanded role of her mother, Barbara, is a privilege and a pleasure.
Blume’s novel threw millions of real-life Margarets a lifeline. It remains, in some parts of our world, a banned and controversial book. It talks plainly about menstruation, bras and a protagonist who uses God — though she’s an agnostic with an asterisk — as an unseen counselor. This book deserved a really good film version, and writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen,” also really good) captures Blume’s spirit while adding new emotional and narrative wrinkles.
One significant adjustment: Barbara, Margaret’s mother, now matters in ways she didn’t quite matter on the page. Played with quicksilver emotional insight by McAdams, Barbara comes from a fundamentalist Christian background, though she’s essentially buried it. Her parents have cut her out of their lives for marrying a Jew (Benny Safdie). Even without knowing that set of grandparents, Margaret’s life in Manhattan has been a happy one, with an in-town grandmother (Kathy Bates) who takes her to Broadway shows and prays for Margaret to covert to Judaism.
“Are You There God?” works on a simple narrative line, after the family’s disruptive move to a Jersey suburb, where brittle PTA ladies make Barbara look like a Woodstock hippie. Margaret soon makes friends with the sociable Nancy (Elle Graham), who convenes a “secret club” where members discuss boys and swear an oath to let each other know when their first periods arrive. Blume’s source text, as does the movie, uses familiar signposts of awkward social interaction — a closet for kissing at a boy’s party; a spin-thebottle suspense sequence — in fresh ways. The book may not be edgy, and the movie isn’t, either. But it’s warm to the touch and straight from the heart, without conspicuous engineering.
Filmmaker Craig remembers how it was. She respects the notknowing parts of any budding adolescent’s years, nailing the moments of wry comedy as well as the sudden, piercing dives into anger, or anguish. The time period stays in 1970 with a few tin-ear moments, but only a few.
Late in the film, after a dinner with her estranged parents and her mother-in-law, Barbara and the equally tempest-tossed Margaret share a cathartic moment on the couch. The move, their new life, their feelings — it’s exhausting, Mom says, “trying so hard all the time.” An ordinary, extraordinary line. There’s so much love in this moment; “Are You There God?” makes sure we see it and feel it, even when things get difficult.
MPA rating: PG-13 (for thematic material involving sexual education and some suggestive material) Running time: 1:45
How to watch: In theaters