Are You There God, It's Me Margaret Review

 

Perhaps the greatest thing about Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is that it’s a film about a 6th grader, that ends in 6th grade.

Who knows what Margaret will grow up to believe or become. Who knows if she’ll have that date (or it’s 7th grade equivalent) with Moose? Instead, the film captures a snapshot of childhood in the way a handful of great novels have done throughout history.

There’s no doubt that this book reached a large swath of a certain generation of pre-pubescent girls facing the terror of puberty, and I imagine (as someone who hasn’t read the book), that that is due to its universality. However, the Brazilian filmmaker Fernando Meirelles (and I’m paraphrasing here) once said that if you really focus on the specificity of your setting, it becomes universal.

That’s where this movie meets its strength. Margaret isn’t just a stand-in for every girl going through puberty. She’s doing it in the disconnected suburbs of New York in milieu of 1970 when a mother like Barbara (Rachel McAdams) was catching distant whiffs of feminist liberation and a young couple was breaking free of their past generations’ view on religion.

More than that, it’s a story about the fleeting and wondrous nature of youth. In one scene, Margaret professes she’s miserable. In another letter, she tells her teacher that she’s lost her belief in God and it goes unresolved. The only resolution we see is her taking the time to compliment him on being a great teacher on the last day of school. She has a massive realization that her friend is evil and decides to switch her friend circle. But still hangs out with their mutual friends and it’s hard to tell if there’s ever a big “The Reason You Suck” speech.

But that’s how life goes when you’re a sixth grader. Without a doubt, the most eventful years of your life are when you’re young. At that age, you have 800 times more good and bad things simultaneously happening to you all at once. It’s all a vast contradiction that even if you’re processing so many negative things, you are still experiencing and growing at a rate most of us adults can only dream of. It’s the reason that most of our dreams (at least mine) or my favorite memories are from our youth.

I’d probably classify my freshman and senior years of high school and my sophomore and senior years of college as the best years of my life. But there was plenty of stress and misery in those times too. During when unplanned gap semester in college, I voiced how miserable I was to my uncle and he bemusedly smiled and said “it sounds like you’re really growing and doing well.” I didn’t understand it, and I doubt that some adolescents will understand it either.

It’s the reason I told my niece, who was similarly hating 9th grade, not to be in such a hurry to grow up.

The Eleven Films I've Seen This Year So Far Ranked from 1 to 11

Well, it's no secret that this has been a challenging year for a film viewer. I've previously complained about Marvel, Avengers, and sequel coming close to the point of ruining Summer. Last year, extremely unnecessary remakes of The Lion King and Aladdin; a bloated Avengers finale, a third Toy Story sequel, and a Men in Black reboot with diminishing returns was a tipping point for me. 

But with this temporary apocalypse having canceled Summer, I'm kind of missing the frivolous blockbusters. Nearly everything I've seen from the 2020 slate has been quirky indie fare. This kind of stuff would normally get drowned out in the Summer calendar and, at least, it has a chance to shine?


1. Palm Springs-As I wrote at TV Fanatic, I think this might have the makings of a classic on some future day. It operates on multiple levels: Charming, fun, sweet, and riotously funny on one level. On another level, it's poignant, thought-provoking, full of memorable moments, and laden with Easter eggs. Like Groundhog Day, it's endlessly rewatchable. Expect this to be a cult classic down the road.
2. 7500-Whatever happened to the days of Air Force One and Executive Decision? It's a shame tense airline thrillers have gone out of style (was it 9/11 sensitivity?). Joseph Gordon-Levitt takes every part he's given with great care and in his hands, this isn't just a psychological thriller but an existential tale of loss.
3. Blow the Man Down-I'd hesitate to use the word noir for something that doesn't have noir's stylistic elements but this tale of murder in a Maine brothel and two sisters who get caught up in the vice is a bit Fargo-esque in that it highlights the underbelly of the seemingly quaint. Few films have casts that are almost entirely old women and aren't romantic comedies (i.e. First Wives Club, Book Club) so let's celebrate June Squibb, Margo Martindale, and Annette O'Toole.
4. Radioactive-Standard fare biopic but the irony that these two (Marie and Pierre Curie) are discovering something that will kill them makes for pretty good drama and there is a courtship between the two that is kind of gripping. Too bad it on lt takes up the first half-hour of the film.
5. Buffaloed-A film of two low-lifes who try to one-up each other (Barry Levinson's Tin Men is an apt comparison) in the debt collection trade. Except that one of them is the spritely and cute Zoey Deutch so we know who to root for, don't we? The tough-as-nails chick isn't particularly new but it feels fresh coming from Deutch (just as she made the go-getter female lead in a rom-com fresh with Set It Up in 2018). The film's romance is somewhat sloppy but as a con film, it has lots of twists and turns. As an indie film, this is something with a lot of flavor as well.

6. Troop Zero-McKenna Grace (I, Tonya) stars as a Girl Scout in 1977 Georgia with ambitions to win some scouting award so she can send a message to space. But the man (in the form of a stern Allison Janney) won't let her do her thing for bureaucratic reasons that don't really matter if you think too hard. Also, this is Georgia in 1977 and maybe they don't like that Viola Davis is their scoutmaster. Like Blow the Man Down, the film has a strong sense of place as indies are known to do. Although there are some awkward moments, I can appreciate how it doesn't take the Disneyesque route.
7. Eurovision-Based on a true competition, the Netflix film takes place in Iceland and is a decent odd couple pairing between Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams as idiosyncratic Icelandic yokels. Remember the days when Will Ferrell had two or three starring vehicles every year? Our appetites haven't abated for his aloof brand of manchild comedy just yet, but he doesn't always have the right scripts to work with. This comedy is a bit broad.
8. Wrong Missy-David Spade is an underrated comic presence for his generation of Saturday Night Live and he's done some amazing supporting work over the years. Still, it's definitely hard to find the right niche for him. Even though the real-life David Spade is a decent human being, his comic persona is that of a snark-master who probably wouldn't fit into a mature relationship unless they were matched romantically with an equally immature person. It's not hard to conceive of a storyline where David Spade realizes that he's not cut out for the corporate ladder and decides to become a stand-up comedian with a goofy woman who helped her alongside that life realization. Unfortunately, the film went the other way with the goofy love interest (Lauren Lapkus) being meaningless.
9. Sonic the Hedgehog-The only blockbuster I saw this year. As someone who grew up playing Sonic the Hedgehog and actually read the manual, I had the advantage of having some source material to work with. And to the degree that you can be faithful to a video game, yes, this is true to the source. But, come on, that's not really saying much. The film wasn't awful but it was uninspiring at best and forgettable at worst when dealing with certain plot lines. 
10. Horse Girl-Allison Brie (Community, Glow) stars as a sensitive girl with possibly some disorder. She wants companionship and love but seems to repel people and is averse to a deeper relationship. It's not particularly clear and neither is anything else about this film. The third act goes all Ingmar Bergman and at that point, it's no thank you!
11. Late Time Adolescence-Pretty much the same plot as King of Staten Island but, silly me, I watched this first and I don't have the patience for two Pete Davidson movies in one year. Sorry, Judd Apatow. Davidson was a decent addition to Saturday Night Live when he joined the cast in 2014 after resident stand-up Brooks Whelan got short-changed but in the last couple of years he's either coasted, complained about not getting enough screen time or simply been absent. I'm wondering if new hires like Chloe Finneman have even met the guy.

The 25 Best Performances of 2018 in Film

1.       Ethan Hawke, First Reformed-What’s most impressive is that there are no overtly dramatic shouting monologues when you feel the character really has something to say. You can feel him bottling it up inside. 

2.       Rachel Weisz, Disobedience-The performance is helped along by the absence of a score in some places. The soundscape (mirroring a horror film to some degree) matches the performance really well and there’s also the fact that Weisz has to play discomfort in the first half without revealing too much of a larger truth (her past attraction to McAdams’ character)

3.       Christian Bale, Vice-It boils down largely to “It’s Christian Bale, what do you expect?” There’s a lot of nuance in playing Bale

4.       Rachel Weisz, The Favourite-The stand-out in this film because she’s so devious and fun. If Emma Stone donned an accent, it might have been more of a contest

5.       Mahershala Ali, Green Book-I feel like accent-wise he Sidney Poitiered it up a wee bit too much and I could sense inconsistencies accent-wise, so deducting a little for that. Other than that, it’s a tour-de-force performance worthy of an Oscar. Obviously, it should be a lead but the marketing team at Universal was smart enough to place him in a weak field where there’d be no question he could win with all the fluctuations of a long season

6.       Kiki Layne, If Beale Street Could Talk-In particular, I remember the indelible montage of her working long days behind a retail counter while pregnant and then succumbing to labor

7.       Alessandro Nivola, Disobedience-“You are free!” So much subtlety in this performance and so many uncomfortable situations. “Disobedience” and “The Favourite” were easily the most challenging and successfully acted films of the year

8.       Rachel McAdams, Disobedience-McAdams’s Oscar nomination came from being elevated by the prestige of starring in sn eventual Best Picture winner in a week year. This is miles above that role. 

9.       Rami Malek, Bohemian Rhapsody-I was originally happy to see him win an Oscar but upon rewatching this film a second time on an airplane, BORRRING. I believe I was so blind to its flaws on the first watch because I knew nothing about Queen and they are a really interesting story. Mercury was an ethnic and sexual outliar to his time while gaining exalted status as a rock God and he was also intellectually ahead of his time. If you already are aware of Queen the novelty wears off fast and that applies for the performance too. However, there is a certain multi-directional charisma Malek bought to the role that helped move it along. I was planning on ranking him higher but A) He didn’t sing and B) He has a certain naivette in the first half of the film that sort of leaves more questions than it answers.

10.   Ben Foster, Leave No Trace-Proud to brag here that I attended a screening with Foster appearing afterwards in Q &A. Since the days of “Big Trouble” and “X-Men: The Last Stand”, I’ve been a fan of this guy.  He generally has a look that gets him cast in baddies or rough-and-tumble guys.

11.   Viola Davis, Doubt-I’m not as much of a fan lately of Davis for reasons that have to do with her (publicly disowning “The Help)  and reasons absent (the attention she gets in comparison to costars), but It was a creative choice to grant her a BAFTA nomination. As the lead, she plays a key role in elevating a genre film to a work with the kind of socio-economic  that might get the Oscars talking.

12.   Cynthia Evro, Bad Times at El Royale-Aside from her wonderful singing voice, she brings the fear and tension and when she smashes that bottle over the dude’s  head (it would spoil it to identify the victim of her smash but I left a hint there), it’s a show-stopper of a scene. This film has a very strong ensemble

13.   Jon Hamm, Beirut-Squinting at intelligence reports, ruminating over high-pressure decisions, talking with the authority of a well-versed operative against various diplomats, this is the kind of stuff they gave Claire Danes Emmys for in “Homeland” and Hamm deserves at least a sliver of the same attention here for a fine performance in a film that opened at the wrong time of year. Like Viola Davis, the movie’s ability to transcend genre rests entirely on him.

14.   Regina King, If Beale Street Could Talk-An excellent choice for Best Supporting Actress if they’re not going to go with Weisz. The scene where she pleads to the Puerto Rican for her son-in-law’s life is that showstopping moment an Oscar campaign needs for the highlight reel but she’s present in every scene.

15.   Emma Stone, The Favourite-This film is a collection of great scenes and she had a number of standout moments I can’t deny. If she put just a bit more work into an accent or just felt more of the period, I could have felt like she was carrying more of her weight.

16.   Olivia Coleman, The Favourite-It’s always nice to see the Oscar prognosticators be made fools of on Oscar night. After all, the spirit of the event is to be elated when a name is called on the big night and those prognosticators try to mathematically shortcut the process and suck the fun out of it. Besides, Olivia Coleman has been a vibrant up-and-comer who has enhanced everything she’s done and Glenn Close isn’t owed anything just because she’s been nominated before. However, the screen time was a bit short to get all worked up about.  

17.   Colin Farrell, Widows-I’m not one of those types who goes around saying “I’m gonna write a screenplay someday” but I occasionally have imaginary movie ideas I’m developing in my head and one of them is about an apathetic politician exactly like the kind Colin Farrell played in this film which is kind of creepy yet remarkable. One way to measure a good supporting performance is if you want to see a whole film developed about the side character and in this case, yes.

18.   Tim Blake Nelson, Ballad of Buster Scruggs-If this singing cowboy had the whole film to himself, I could say it having some kind of Jack-Sparrow-like potential in terms of making a dent in pop culture and getting action figures and the like.

19.   Thomasin McKenzie, Leave No Trace-I remember it being a great movie with a solid relationship in the center, but I don’t have that sensory memory so many months  later of what this performance felt like.

20.   Marina del Taverna, Roma-Is the “d” capitalized or lower-case. Discuss amongst yourselves (or look it up)

21.   Viggo Mortensen, Green Book-A bit stereotypically Italian but f the Green Book critics who are continuing to perpetuate the myth that the movie’s inaccurate. I’m assuming Mortensen did his homework

22.   Jeff Bridges, Bad Times at El Royale-After seeing Jeff Bridges in interviews, I have a sneaking suspicion that this seven-time Oscar nominee has just been playing variations of his stoned hippie self for a long time. I’ve seen four of his seven Oscar-nominated performances and have been unimpressed.

23.   Michael Palin, Death of Stalin-What a national treasure. His indecisive pickiness is a great contrast to this unique film

24.   Lakieth Stanfield, Sorry to Bother You-A terrible and obnoxious movie, but credit where credit is due.

25.   Sandra Bullock, Ocean’s 8-Yes, I think she’s more charming than the smug George Clooney here. This is a playfully fun part and she has a slyness I like

Others I was considering:
Nancy Garcia Garcia, Roma; Donald Glover, Solo; Steve Carell, Vice; Jeffrey Tambour, Death of Stalin; Rufus  Sewell, Death of Stalin, Lewis Pullman, Bad Times at El Royale; John  David Washington, BlacKkKlansman; Amanda Seyfried, First Reformed

Disobedience (2018) Review

Rachel Weisz stars as a Rabbi's daughter returning to an Orthodox Jewish community that's shunned her because she didn't want to adopt their ways. This is a common problem in Orthodox communities when people choose a different belief system than the one they were raised with. It presents a myriad of challenges to navigate and this film portrays it with the utmost delicacy.

The film has a brilliant pseudo-horror vibe with the voyeuristic looks that her disapproving peers inflict upon her with as she sits with them at dinner or walks through the streets alongside them. 

The film is advertised as a film about a lesbian relationship, but it's really a film about free will because being in a pre-marital sexual relationship, dating a secular jew, even having secular Jews in your friend circle or getting an education all lead to the same end result of shunning anyways. 

Perhaps it's my experience in this type of community, but the film is beautiful, spot-on, tense, sexy , and treats each of the three leads (Rachel McAdams and Allesandro Nivola) and their character arcs with a great sense of respect.