Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023)
Time: 1h 46mins
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Quick Summary: When her family moves from the city to the suburbs, 11-year-old Margaret navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.
While not being relatively special I still found this enjoyable and very sweet.
Essentially this is a coming-of-age story of a young girl in the 70s, struggling to understand adult complexities and the concept of religion. Something I found interesting is that this deals with young girls and how their bodies can change and it manages to talk about it in such a mature and gentle way. It talks about how awkward it can be buying your first bra or even what to do when you get your period, in sort of a humourous way but it's lighthearted nowhere at all is it offensive.
The whole plot point of religion in this is handled so well too. Margret has one parent who is Jewish and the other who is Christian and chooses to explore them out of curiosity. It shows how difficult it can be to understand them and the difficulties that come with people and religion. As her grandparents begin to argue about what religion she should be, Margret becomes frustrated with the many choices, not understanding what is so different about them.
It was a shame to me that her father has barely any input into the story, as I found him interesting and really funny at times, though I suppose this story is focused on Margret and her Mother who I found actually had a nice amount of depth to her. She didn't take over the story at all, she just added to it which can be hard to do.
This has a lot of charm to it, but I know plenty of people wouldn't enjoy this film due to the subject matter. It is very directed towards a certain audience but I wouldn't say that is a bad thing at all. Overall it is very fun and silly at times, I'm really glad this chose to not be fully serious. Unfortunately, because of what the film is about you can basically predict what will happen at the end.
6/10
A review from a friend:
Very strong acting from Abby Ryder Fortson and the child cast in general make everything feel so authentic and Rachel McAdams had one of the best scenes I've watched in a while. Overall a charming film that clearly reflects and respects the female experience
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