★★★★☆
This coming-of-age film from Kelly Fremon Craig is one of the best of the year. Read our review of Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret.Despite its title, Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret is not a film about God or even religion. Sure, the titular heroine does struggle with her religious identity and she even speaks frequently to God, but Kelly Fremon Craig’s film is more concerned with a much more prominent teenage girl worry; the arrival of your first period. The film starts when Margaret (A wonderful Abby Ryder Fortson) gets home from summer camp to find out her family are relocating from New York to the suburbs of New Jersey. Margaret is devastated but quickly befriends her neighbour Nancy (Elle Graham) and her group of friends. Margaret’s teacher, upon learning Margaret’s mother is Christian and her father is Jewish but have raised Margaret free of either religion, assigns her to explore her religious identity over the course of the year. Margaret also experiences the usual ups and downs of being a pre-teen as she figures out who she is and where she belongs.
Credit: Lionsgate
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The film is grounded by its inherent humanity; Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret is constantly funny and warm and it never aims to get a cheap laugh at the expense of one of the characters, all of whom feel like real human beings rather than stereotypes. It’s also painfully relatable. Margaret and her friends steal a Playboy magazine from Margaret’s dad and admire one of the playgirls; 19 and probably blessed with a plentiful bosom. Seconds later the girls are all flapping their arms like a bunch of chickens while chanting “We must, we must, we must increase our bust!” The girls also stress about getting their periods. They learn about menstruation in class from a cringey educational video, which of course bears no resemblance to how periods actually work. One by one, the girls gleefully announce the arrival of Lady Red, but Margaret is still waiting for hers. At 11, nothing seems as important as being like everyone else. Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret treats Margaret’s teenage heartache (not the romantic kind, although there’s that too) with compassion and the seriousness it warrants. Margaret is also pleasingly flawed; she shames a classmate for having developed early but later visibly regrets her actions and words. Rachel McAdams is simply luminous as Margaret’s mother Barbara as is Kathy Bates as grandma Sylvia, but the film often struggles to find the balance with all three women. Benny Safdie makes the most of his small role, but he is by far the most superficial in the sea of complex, satisfying female characters. Fremon Craig’s direction is confident and there’s an authenticity to the film that’s impossible to manufacture. Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret might lack the anarchy of Fremon Craig’s previous film, The Edge of Seventeen, but this is another empathetic portrayal of being a teenage girl and all the problems that come with that, big and small.
Are you there God? It’s Me, Margaret is in UK cinemas 19 May
