Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. feels like it should be extremely controversial in today's book-banning, library-defunding culture. The book, originally published in 1970, has been frequently challenged by angry parents who don't want their children to be able to read about the changes of puberty or a family where religious adherence is non-compulsory. But the movie, written and directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, has been met not with controversy, but indifference. Though critics and audiences love it, most people just don't seem to know or care that it exists. It's been playing in wide release since the end of April, and has only grossed $13.3 million against a $30 million budget.
It's a shame, because it feels vital. I never read any of Judy Blume's work as a kid, and, though I had a copy of Are You There God? I never cracked it open. I knew, vaguely, that it was about puberty and periods and bras, and as a kid who felt guilty about everything I did, I assumed I would feel guilty about reading it. My wife did read it, so when we went to see the movie on Monday night, we had both the newbie and veteran's perspective represented.
We both had a great time. Even 53 years after publication, the frankness of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. can feel a little shocking. Though I grew up with Disney series like Pepper Ann and Lizzie McGuire addressing puberty, Are You There God? is willing to be uncomfortably honest in a way that media about adolescence rarely was.
That's something Fremon Craig has praised about Blume's books. "The feeling that her work gives me is that it's always honest. She's always telling the truth," Fremon Craig said in an interview with IndieWire's Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. "It also rides a certain line where it's almost… it's a little scary how honest it is, because it makes you go 'Ugh, are we allowed to say that?'"
That's the feeling I got from Are You There God, It's Me Margaret, too. In that interview, Fremon Craig goes on to reference the scene in the movie where Margaret, out of jealousy of a friend who has already gotten her period, tries on a pad for the first time. She also cites a similar example, in which a character says that someone told her getting your period "smells like the monkey bars." Those moments are a little uncomfortable, but they're specific in a way that rings true. I grew up as a boy, so my puberty experience was different, but my wife mentioned that the film felt true to her experience of living in the waiting room of early adolescence, when you know that big changes are going to happen to your body, but not when they'll begin to occur.
Regardless of what your own puberty looked like, Are You There, God? captures the feeling of no longer experiencing the world in the unencumbered way you do as a young child. For me, that experience wasn't at the time Margaret experienced it, but later on, in high school, when I first began to experience depression. It's the most impactful before-and-after moment of my life, and it was all the more difficult because I couldn't believe that anyone else had experienced something like that before. It wasn't until I read The Catcher in the Rye later on in high school that I saw my pain presented as I lived it. That book meant the world to me because of that, and I hope the people who need Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. find it sooner rather than later. A film this specific, yet universal, deserves a bigger audience.