A Rare Portrait Of A Loving Family In 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret'
#224: "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret," "Moonage Daydream," "Die Hard With A Vengeance," "Spirited Away"
Edition 224:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
This week: A new Guy Ritchie less than two months after the last one? Plus, the new Apple movie that a friend saved me from having to sit through, and two Tom Cruise movie suggestions since he’s apparently still the biggest movie star in the world. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” we get our first look at season six of “Black Mirror,” and it gets me as excited as any movie coming out this year.
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret
Every movie does not have to save the world.
There’s something wonderfully quotidian about the new adaptation of Judy Bloom’s young adult classic novel, and though the first thing (quotidian) couldn’t be true in 2023 without the second (adaptation of popular IP), I’m more than thankful a movie like this snuck through the system.
There were moments throughout this 11-year-old girl’s coming-of-age journey when my 2023 brain assumed the movie would make a more dramatic or extreme decision, a Hollywood decision, only to see it choose surprising naturalism each time. As someone who has never personally experienced what it was like to be a tween girl (and after seeing this, THANK GOODNESS), the movie quickly wins you over with how authentic it feels.
Of course, it helps that the story takes place in 1970, a time when growing up was much simpler than it is today and there’s an infinite supply of awesome songs that can be needle dropped throughout the movie.
It also helps if your parents are as cool as Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie, who are decades ahead of their time historically here when it comes to free thinking acceptance and collaborative parenting. At its best, this movie works as one of those young adult movies where kids can relate to the kid characters and adults with the parent characters with equal effectiveness.
I’ve always thought of McAdams as an actor with somewhat limited range, but when she’s able to play sweet, lovable characters (The Notebook, About Time) she is one of the best in the business. She’s fantastic here, as is Safdie, who has been flexing his acting chops recently (also in Licorice Pizza) when he’s not busy working with his brother as one of the most exciting young directing teams out there (Good Time, Uncut Gems).
Perhaps it’s no surprise that the movie would display such a deft touch on young womanhood with Kelly Fremon Craig at the helm writing and directing (and not just because she has a great last name). Her last filmmaking effort in 2016, The Edge of Seventeen, was similarly observant and heartfelt about a different inflection point in life. Great movie. Clearly, her talent is for getting the most out of child actors, as here Abby Ryder Fortson announces herself as a person to watch for every juicy young adult role going forward (or, more likely, some superhero thing).
You don’t really realize, until you see a movie like this, how rare it is to see a wholesome and functioning family in movies and television. Mom loves dad and dad loves mom, and both parents love their kid. The kid loves her parents! A grandparent is in the picture and has a great relationship with all three as well. Can you imagine?
The fear with all this lovey-dovey is that the story would be boring. It’s a tough thing to pull off and still feel interesting, but there’s conflict to mine from the difficulties of external pressures and growing up, and it’s a really joyful thing to watch a family going through it together when it works.
In this case, it works. Are You There God? is a good movie that’s even easier to root for, which I feel like should be close to required viewing for young girls or parents of young girls. The rest of us will all have a really nice 100 minutes. Sometimes, that’s enough!
Something New
Moonage Daydream (Max): I had a crazy IMAX experience with this movie last September, but it’s taken this long for it to be picked up by a streaming service. Now it’s available to all, and I highly recommend it even to those who aren’t David Bowie fans or regular documentary watchers. Here’s a bit from my review:
“The new David Bowie documentary is one part concert film, one part abstract cultural essay, and three parts philosophical magnum opus. It doesn’t attempt to explain the life or impact of the rock n roll icon as much as it simply presents the unadulterated gospel according to Bowie — which I could sum up as the following: life is chaos and we should embrace it.
The movie is an overwhelming sensory overload, cut like a two-hour psychedelic music video that manages to walk through Bowie’s long career without a hint of exposition.”
Something Old
Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995): The absolute best case scenario for the third movie in an action franchise is what happened here, when an outstanding standalone script called Simon Says was floating around Hollywood before being converted into a John McLane story (fun fact, it was first written up for Lethal Weapon and then abandoned before becoming Die Hard 3). Rewatching this week, it’s clear how absurdly overqualified it is from a writing standpoint, in stark comparison to today’s blockbusters.
The thought that kept coming to my mind was that today’s action movies are way too focused on the macro storytelling (lore, backstory, franchise world-building) and completely botch the micro storytelling — often it’s one Macguffin leads to another side quest, and you never really have to understand any of it because it’ll hold your hand through the whole thing. In this movie, there are legitimate riddles and puzzles the audience must solve, and although the outcome is never in doubt there’s real suspense and surprise along the way.
With Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson operating at the peak of their powers, against supervillain Jeremy Irons, and a script this sharp, it’s about as close to popcorn perfection as you can get.
Something to Stream
Spirited Away (Max): Hayao Miyazaki (or the “Japanese Disney,” for the reductionist crowd) has a new movie coming out this year, 10 years after what many believed would be the 82-year-old’s last project (The Wind Rises, a masterpiece and my favorite of his films).
For those who want to play catch-up on the legend’s career, his most celebrated work is Spirited Away, which earned him an Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2003 and is considered by anyone with eyeballs to be one of the greatest pieces of children’s storytelling ever created. For us adult folks, it serves as a perfect piece of comfort food entertainment. The animation is nothing short of majestic, and the storytelling has a light touch without ever slipping into fleeting insignificance. This could be your gateway into a whole new world of film!
Trailer Watch: Dune: Part Two
Here’s a very hot take: I think Dune is going to win Best Picture next year. There’s been a concerted effort over the past few years to recognize blockbuster movies and attempt to unite the commercial and artistic sides of the industry, but the Academy is never going to hand its top prize to guys wearing bright colored spandex. This movie carries the weight of prestige, and let us not forget, the first Dune movie was SIX Oscars (mostly in production categories).
None of that would be a conversation were it not for the fact that this movie looks incredible. It does. And if that weren’t enough, the cast includes basically all of the young movie stars with unanimous approval ratings (Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Austin Butler). It’s going to be a massive hit, a critical darling, and maybe the most important movie of the year (eat your heart out, Marty Scorcese).