Having never read Blume’s novel, I doubt much of it is dedicated to the drudgery of Margaret’s mother’s life or the loneliness of her grandmother. Maybe an aside from Margaret’s inner monologue as she notices mom with piles of crafts for the school dance, or how much she misses her grandma. Here, Fremon Craig makes the best of her adaptation by (presumably) fleshing out these supporting characters, to great success. A candidate for scene of the year comes with Barbara at home, by herself. Formerly a painting teacher, she’s now stuck cutting out dozens of felt stars for some PTA fundraiser, and a migrating oriole lands outside her snow-swept window. She recognizes the serendipity of the moment and rushes for her sketchbook, only for it to fly away when the PTA president rings her doorbell, bearing more felt. McAdams plays the scene beautifully, like the entirety of the Feminine Mystique summarized on her face in two minutes. This little spot of joy and creativity drops into her life, is acknowledged and disrupted, and the only thing left to do after it passes is more uncredited busy work. This is not what was expected from this film, but it enriches Are You There, God considerably by perpetuating the theme of change and its constancy through the generations.
What is expected is the onset of puberty, a topic explored to the nth degree by the aforementioned TV series. It’s impossible for this viewer to say what TV has iterated from Blume, and what Fremon Craig has taken from TV, but the film has more than a ring of timeless truth combined with some of the recent streaming randomness, especially Pen15. For the latter, Margaret gets a crush on an older neighbor boy, and the camera lingers on his armpit hair, of all things, because who knows why a kid at that age latches onto what they latch onto? Also like Pen15, the popular boy and focus of the girls’ crushes is revealed to be a lunkheaded moron a few years away from the peak of his entire life, not that that stops anyone from thinking he’s the cutest. What feels universally true is the alienation of being off of the development bell curve, or the casual cruelty in the way that adults speak to and around children at this age. Are You There, God isn’t interested in a raw puberty, and compensates for that by focusing on the ancillary emotions of it.
All this, communicated through a warm cast of known adults and child newcomers, speaks to a generosity of spirit that great ensemble films have, where the choice of protagonist could justifiably land on a dozen characters. Which is why the film’s abrupt ending is such a letdown. That generosity is swapped for a rush to the exit. Rapprochements that needed to happen don’t, and thus hang over the ending as unfinished business at best and at worst as Margaret’s hypocrisy in a film that otherwise frames her as a thoroughly decent and observant person. A framing device throughout Margaret’s school year is a report on religion, and she intermittently tries out different denominations of Christianity and her father’s Judaisim before encountering a difficult reunion with her mother’s estranged parents, who Margaret’s never met on account of their disapproval of Barbara marrying Herb. This builds to a big blow-up, but the debrief happens off-screen and nothing comes of the report. Great films frequently leave the viewer feeling like they could’ve spent more time in the onscreen world, and Fremon Craig succeeds in replicating this feeling. Why she’s so eager to get to the credits is a major problem that could only be explained by her love of the Cat Stevens song that plays over it. It’s a great song, but it’ll remain great if it comes fifteen minutes later.
Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret hits incredible highs and has all the makings of a coming-of-age classic that parents are happy to let their daughters, or evolved sons, watch during sleepovers. McAdams is as good as she’s ever been, and Fortson’s career could credibly follow the path of Fremon Craig’s other coming-of-age lead actor, Hailee Steinfeld. I just wish I didn’t feel compelled to give it an incomplete instead of a grade. Maybe there’ll be a Kingdom of Heaven-style director’s cut that turns a flawed film into a masterpiece. B+