Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret [2023]
“Why God? Why do I only feel you when I’m alone?”
‘Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.’ is the 2023 adaptation of Judy Bloom’s 1970 novel of the same name. Written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig [Edge of Seventeen], this film is a great example of how to hit all your talking points, but lose your soul along the way. Poignant, well thought out, and insightful, the only thing this concoction is missing is the heart that seems to be left behind within the pages of the original text.
We follow Margaret Simon, a 12-year old girl struggling with her existence between several different worlds. Margaret’s parents are both non-practicing members of different religions – Mom is Christian, dad is Jewish. This has caused her mother’s family to disown her, a fact juxtaposed by Margaret’s closeness with her paternal grandmother who is also beginning a new stage in her life as she seeks companionship during her senior years. Margaret is growing up and has to struggle with the growing pains that entails, the drama of her familial world, and the complex question of what God means to her. The concepts here are great, and the messages are equally well presented… They’re just also frighteningly boring.
Performances are mostly semi-wooden, the score is entirely lackluster and feels like it was ripped out of a Hallmark original, the cinematography exists only because the film was shot on cameras, and the scope of the experiences shown is so narrow that it feels like nothing in the narrative has been updated to fit a 21st century world. It’s all much too bad because the film deals with issues that are complex for adults to navigate, and ones even more so for preteens. This was a very strange experience because I kept waiting for it to have some sort of flair or style or flavor but, every time it got close, it just tamped itself down again.
Even if you can get past its catatonic presentation, the film is far from without narrative flaws. While one character does get a narrative redemption by the end of the film, there are others whose plights simply exist for us to laugh at them. Norman Fisher, an overweight boy with thick-rimmed glasses [a.k.a. a “nerd”] simply exists within the narrative for us to jeer at, for instance. While Margaret does come around and realize that her current group leader is something of a catty faker, there’s too much shallow characterization everywhere else to give the moment much of a narrative impact.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is the only film I’ve ever thought about halfway through and gone, “This should have been a musical.”. I think as a ‘Matilda’ or ‘Heathers’ style musical, this story would shine as an instant classic on the big screen. Either that or a narration-driven tale like the longtime classic, A Christmas Story. All the pieces are there, the presentation just seems to have been left entirely at the door. “Unfortunate” is how I would describe much of this experience, because it’s just unfortunate how much more there clearly is to this story and how much larger of a message it could have communicated with better direction, music, cinematography, style, and soul.
“How can I stop worrying when I don’t know if I’m going to turn out normal?”
