Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023)

It’s possible that you need to know Judith Blume’s 1970 YA novel of the same name to fully appreciate this movie. I never read it but at least I remember it was a popular sensation in high school. And I have seen another picture by director and screenwriter Kelly Fremon Craig, The Edge of Seventeen from 2016, which is approximately as good. It’s 1970 here and sixth-grader Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) is experiencing personal challenges. Her family has just moved from New York City to the suburbs of New Jersey where she has to make all new friends. She also happens to be enduring some ongoing religious issues. Her father Herb (a strangely miscast Benny Safdie) is Jewish, her mother Barbara (an excellent Rachel McAdams) was raised by blood-of-Jesus evangelicals from Ohio who disowned her when she married a Jew. In fact, Margaret has never met her grandparents on that side. As a result, Margaret’s parents have decided to leave all personal religious choices to Margaret herself. Also, her teacher has assigned her to do a study of religion for a year-long project. Margaret is definitely curious about religion, which leads to lots of conversations / prayers she has with God (as per the title). Her Christian grandparents do make an appearance, and also, maybe, something of an effort, but that piece of the story is left open-ended by movie’s end. Mostly Margaret hangs around in a clique of three other girls her age, all of them worried about starting their periods and growing their breasts (behind closed doors in their bedrooms they fly off into exercises of “We must, we must, we must increase our bust”). They worry a lot about attracting boys, starting by liking some of the worst, not knowing any better. Are You There God? is indeed a tender coming-of-age story, and heck, maybe I should go back and read the novel. I loved this movie. It’s funny and warm and often touching. It’s rated PG-13, with lots of Disneyesque family feels. I had to wince a few times, and some of the plot threads are not resolved entirely convincingly. But Are You There God? is a nice place to stop and smell the roses. Fortson is terrific as Margaret and McAdams is also great. And the picture is full of tart little life lessons for Margaret that won’t hurt any of the rest of us to relearn. The mission of this feel-good movie is to make you and your loved ones feel good. Mission accomplished.