Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret: a valentine to an innocent adolescence that modern teenagers will never know
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The Seventies have never felt further away than in the new adaptation of Judy Blume’s coming-of-age bestseller, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. When Blume’s novel was first published in 1970, it was praised for its unflinching depiction of the trials of growing up and became essential reading for generations of young girls who looked to adolescence with a mixture of delight and terror.
But today, it’s hard not to envy teenager Margaret (Antman and the Wasp’s Abby Ryder Fortson), who has to contend with nothing more challenging than friendly peer pressure over bra sizes and frustration that she hasn’t yet had her period. Not for her the 21st-century hellscape of cyberbullying or social media addiction – ills recently called out by Kate Winslet with the warning that parents “want their children back”.
For that reason, present-day teenagers may roll their eyes at Kelly Fremon Craig’s sweet, never quite cloying, tilt at Blume’s book. They will undoubtedly be baffled by the heroine’s quest for spiritual fulfilment as she is torn between her father’s flinty New York Judaism and the Heartland Christianity in which her mother was raised (and which she has shunned): who needs God when you have TikTok?
The intended audience, one suspects, are the women – teenage boys always found the novel a snooze – who grew up on Judy Blume and identified with Margaret’s apprehensiveness about the puberty she had not entirely entered. These Blume babies will be delighted by Craig’s take, which cheerfully ticks off the Seventies nostalgia boxes, from the oversized collars to the brown-on-brown colour schemes.
Margaret is an intelligent and upbeat 11-year-old whose life is uprooted when her parents, Herb (Benny Safdie ) and Barbara (Rachel McAdams), announce the family is moving from bustling New York to suburban New Jersey. Margaret is appalled, mainly because she will be separated from her lovably cantankerous paternal grandmother, Sylvia (Kathy Bates).
But in New Jersey, she soon finds a new friend in chirpy neighbour Nancy (Elle Graham) and is initiated into her secret girl gang. Being the Seventies, the pals are untroubled by helicopter parenting or concerns about screen time. Instead, they can indulge in such timeworn pursuits as fancying the dishy guy in school and laughing at/ envying the lanky girl who underwent puberty early.
The one struggling with life is Barbara (McAdams works hard at dialling down her movie star dazzle). Having given up her job as an art teacher, she finds it difficult to fit in with the smug alpha mums and their perfect lives. She is also estranged from her religious mother and father, who turned their backs on her when she married the Jewish Herb. But prompted by Margaret’s questions about her grandparents, she gets in touch with them – leading to a dinner-time confrontation over how best to look out for Margaret’s spiritual wellbeing.
That’s as fraught as it gets. Framed in a Polaroid-style Seventies haze, the mood is Classic Coke ad meets the Wonder Years, a sugary concoction that goes down perfectly. Are You There God? is a sweet coming-of-age story in which life lessons are learned (Margaret quickly diagnoses that the dishy dude with the floppy hair is an unmitigated twerp). Above all, though, it is a valentine to the kind of innocent adolescence that modern teenagers will never have a chance to experience.
PG cert, 111 min. In cinemas from Friday May 19
