Meewella | Critic

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Tag: Kelly Fremon Craig

QuickView: Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret (2023)

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret poster

“It gets tiring. Trying so hard all the time, doesn’t it?”

Barbara Simon

Having spent several years raving about writer-director Kelly Fremont Craig’s debut, The Edge of Seventeen, her name drew me to this film more than the Judy Bloom book on which it is based. The source material is evidently beloved by many and, whilst some consider it strange that it has taken 50 years to receive a film adaptation, the regrettable reason is likely its refreshingly frank approach to female puberty. Craig sets the film in the 1970s, when the novel was published, a move that serves to highlight the story’s lasting relevance. Margaret is dragged from New York to New Jersey, forced to find a new clique of friends who, on the cusp of adolescence, are desperate for their first period in order to be perceived by their peers as mature. The adult cast features a host of big names — particularly Rachel McAdams in an expanded, sympathetic portrayal of Margaret’s mother as a woman dealing with her own issues of identity — but Craig casts relative newcomers as the children. Abby Fortson and Elle Graham stand out, the former through wry comedic sensibility and the latter through bold charm and energy. Despite the title, religion plays a limited role — Margaret’s parents have sought to escape their Jewish and Christian heritage, resenting interference from the grandparents. In making another coming of age film, Are You There God? falls squarely within Craig’s proven abilities and she again writes a likeable but flawed protagonist and deftly examines the positive and negative aspects of the friendships and familial relationships around Margaret whilst limiting melodrama.

8/10

QuickView: The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

The Edge of Seventeen poster

“There are two types of people in the world: the people who naturally excel at life, and the people who hope all those people die in a big explosion.”

Nadine

The best coming of age stories do not simply speak to those going through the transition, but allow adults to reconnect with that period of their youth. Writer/director Kelly Fremon Craig’s wonderful debut demonstrates an ear for the naturalistic wit in sardonic teenage dialogue without the artifice of Juno. Socially awkward Nadine is self-involved, disagreeable and at times even casually cruel, but Craig still allows us to sympathise with her experience. This relies heavily on Hailee Steinfeld’s fantastic central performance, humanising Nadine’s positive and negative traits with warm humour, and granting an emotional weight to those teenage experiences that feel life-or-death at the time. I have not been closely following Steinfeld’s career since her arrival as the wilful young girl in True Grit, but I certainly will be now. Woody Harrelson is notable in a supporting role as that rare, patiently understanding teacher on whom any outsider relies. With the exception of Boyhood (which really is a different beast), The Edge of Seventeen is the best example of the genre for some time.

9/10

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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