Thoughts on Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

    On Hulu, I watched the 2023 coming-of-age dramedy Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret., written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen), based on the 1970 novel of the same name by Judy Blume. The film is set in 1970 and focuses on 11-year old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson), who lives in New York City with her mom Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Herb (Benny Safdie). Her parents tell her that they are moving from NYC to a New Jersey suburb, and Margaret is upset about leaving her friends and her life behind, and most importantly, her grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates). The family moves to the suburbs, and Margaret is immediately befriended by her neighbor and soon-to-be classmate Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), who shows up at the Simon's house already knowing the basic stats on Margaret and being like, "You're with me now." She invites her into her friend group with Gretchen Potter (Katherine Kupferer) and Janie Loomis (Amari Alexis Price). Nancy organizes the group to have a secret club where, according to Nancy, none of them can wear socks (leaving Margaret with blisters on her first day of school), they all have to wear a bra (in which three of them get a Gro-Bra training bra), and they have to keep a "Boy Book" of their school crushes, mainly admiring the same boy, Philip Leroy (Zackary Brooks). And the famous "we must, we must, we must increase our bust" chant with the arm pumping looks ridiculously funny when acted out than when reading it on the page.

    Margaret adjusts to her new school and her friends, trying to fit in with Nancy, even though Nancy encourages bullying of Laura Danker (Isol Young), a taller girl who developed earlier than the other girls, making up slut-shaming rumors about her. Margaret though is struggling more with her religious identity, as her mother is Christian and her father is Jewish, and she wasn't raised with either religion, her parents wanting her to choose when she is an adult. Her class is assigned a year-long research assignment, and based on Margaret's answers in a class questionnaire, Mr. Benedict (Echo Kellum) encourages her to choose religion as her research project. Margaret goes to temple with her grandmother on an NYC visit, much to Sylvia's joy, and she goes to church with Janie and her family.

    Meanwhile, Barbara is trying to adjust to suburban life, joining various PTA committees, though her activities keeps her away from her true passions of painting and teaching art. Herb tries to mow the lawn, but cuts his finger, so a neighborhood boy, Moose (Aidan Wotjak-Hissong) cuts the lawn. The parents are happy together, and there is a cute flirtatious moment on the lawn when Herb pretends to rev up the mower seductively to tease Barbara.

    The film spans over the school year, as Margaret experiences the high and lows of her adolescence, like crushes and peer pressure, and anxiously awaiting growing breasts and getting her period, not wanting to feel left behind in her friend group, especially when other girls get their period ahead of her. There is more grappling with her religious identity, and not wanting to disappoint her parents or grandmother over which religion to pick, and feeling stressed out by her internal struggles.

    I really liked this movie a lot. I read the book when I was around 11, and while it's not my favorite of Judy Blume's books (that would be Starring Sally J. Freeman As Herself, based on Judy Blume's childhood in the 1940s), it's memorable for a funny childhood memory of mine as a 1990s kid. I hadn't had my period yet, and I was reading the book and read the 1970s description of a sanitary pad attached to a belt, which clips onto the underwear, as that was the feminine hygiene product at the time before adhesive pads were invented. I was upset and went downstairs to my mom and told her about that, and whined, "I'm gonna have to wear a belt?!" My mom laughed and said, "It's not like that anymore." Later printings of the book did change that part to an adhesive pad, and the movie depicts it as an adhesive pad as well, even though that would have been anachronistic with the period setting of the movie.

    Abby Lee Fortson was wonderful as Margaret. She brought a lot of realism and sensitivity in her portrayal, making Margaret not perfect, a little messy (especially when she snaps at Laura Danker and goes along with Nancy's bullying, then immediately regrets it when Laura calls her out on her meanness), and overall a normal kid. Fortson had played Paul Rudd and Judy Greer's daughter in the first two Ant-Man movies, and was just cast as Velma in the latest Scooby-Doo project, so it'll be good to see how her career progresses.

    Elle Graham had a harder role to play with Nancy, of making her a Type-A leader with a controlling personality, who bullies another girl over being too tall and having boobs, yet isn't a monster or a horrible person, and it's a fine line to balance, and Graham is great in making Nancy feel like a normal kid as well. She is immature while is a natural leader, encourages her friends to talk about their periods and their crushes and their breasts, and is still a kid, like when she gets her period for the first time while out at a restaurant with her family and Margaret, and is embarrassed and is calling for her mom to help her. She really shines in this film with a more complex role to play.

    Rachel McAdams is great as always, playing a woman who is watching her daughter grow into puberty, not wanting her to grow up too fast. When they go bra shopping (and Barbara is hesitant, like "Do you think you really need one?") and Margaret tries on a bra and is like "I immediately want to take it off," Barbara goes, "Welcome to womanhood." Her parents disowned her because she married a Jewish man, and she and Herb wanted Margaret to make her own decisions about religion and not have it define her life or choices. 

    When Barbara is trying to fit in with the local moms, she is eager to join, but finds it tedious, like cutting out lots of cloth stars for a school dance to fill up the ceiling, or having to put on a fake smile for things she doesn't want to do. It is a relief for her that, at the end of the school year, when time comes to re-enroll in committee activities, she at first looks for an excuse before happily going, "I don't want to do it!" and driving off.

    I liked how the music had early 1970s songs without them being the obvious hits, or that the characters seemed more contemporary and not hitting the audience over the head with "This is the 70s!" in a cartoonish way. It's like when I watched The Wonder Years as a kid and didn't notice that the show was set in the 1960s and 1970s, because I wasn't noticing the costumes or period details, paying closer attention to the stories and characters, and that the themes about family and school and friends were still relatable today. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. had the same feeling, of a story about girlhood being the same regardless of the period details, and I really thought it was a wonderful film.