Preteen prayers raise vital questions in ‘Are You There God?’

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig (Gracie Films, 2023)

Coming-of-age films are usually about men. There are more heroes than heroines—at least up on the screen. Women have learned to mentally rewrite what they see in media into stories that make sense to them.

Judy Blume’s preteen novel was praised in 1970 for remarkably centering the experiences of a young pubescent girl in a narrative focused on bras, boys, and menstruation. In the new film, set in the story’s original time, these themes ring a bit shallow. Margaret demonstrates no other interests or even much intellectual curiosity—but grant her the temporary myopia of a preteen.

Her father is Jewish, her mother raised by devout Christians who disowned her when she married, so Margaret was raised in neither tradition but with heightened sensitivity about the explosive nature of religious difference. As a school project, she attends synagogue with her grandmother Sylvia (the reliably marvelous Kathy Bates), a Black Christian service with her friend Janie, and Mass with her friend Nancy (Elle Graham is fabulously annoying).

Disappointingly, Margaret doesn’t wax philosophical about any of this. Faced with familial friction over religion, she conducts a chatty relationship with God, mostly requesting speedier hormonal development. When God finally does come through and Margaret gets her period, her mother (Rachel McAdams) treats this event with joy and tenderness, a mother realizing that her job of raising a child has just shifted into one of guiding a young woman. Abby Ryder Fortson plays Margaret with likable, fresh wonder.

The film, like the book, acknowledges but doesn’t resolve what troubles Margaret. Still, it raises issues worth discussing in the car on the way home: Why are religions angry with one another? Who chooses what a child believes? How important is physical appearance to being accepted as a friend?