Are You There, Kelly Fremon Craig? It’s Us, Screenwriters

Adapting anything into a screenplay can be intimidating, let alone a book that’s such a touchstone of puberty, it’s part of the zeitgeist. Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig convinced author Judy Blume to entrust Craig with her seminal young adult novel Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret., thanks in part to writing what Blume called “a remarkable and passionate and funny, intimate letter.”

Yet when Craig sat down to write the script, inspiration fled. Instead of thinking of Margaret, a sixth-grade girl dealing with boy-crazy friends and hormones, she imagined the thousands of people she’d disappoint or enrage if she failed Blume or the book somehow.

“The first couple of weeks were really hard,” said Craig, who previously wrote and directed 2016’s Edge of Seventeen, starring Hailee Steinfeld. “There was a lot of typing and then deleting it, because I was really scared to screw it up, and there was an incredible amount of pressure. It’s like I felt the presence of all the fans in the room, and Judy in the room, and eleven-year-old me in the room.”

That’s quite a crowd—one that Craig eventually sent packing.

“When you write with that type of self-consciousness, you’re not going to be able to write a single word. So, I had to find a way to clear everybody out of the room and just write it as one fan—you know, one person who loves the book and wants to make a film that makes you feel the way the book makes you feel,” she said. “As soon as I could wrap my brain around that being the bull’s-eye, the floodgates opened.”

We think Craig pulled it off, thanks to a script full of heartfelt humor and subtlety, plus a likeable and relatable cast including Abby Ryder Fortson (Ant-Man and the Wasp) as Margaret, Rachel McAdams (Game Night) as her mom, Barbara, and Kathy Bates (Home) as Margaret's paternal grandmom, Sylvia.

Blume, now 85, does too, telling the TODAY show, “I love the movie. And how many authors of a book can say, ‘I think that movie is better than the book’?”

Here’s what else Craig learned along the way that might help your own writing.

FIND THE NORTH STAR

Craig had told Blume that when making The Edge of Seventeen, the author “felt like a North Star.”

“Her writing buoyed me through childhood and adolescence, that she was the person who made me fall in love with reading, and eventually, writing,” she’s said.

She knew that doing right by Blume meant setting the film in 1970 to 1971, like the book, and including those awkward scenes of curiosity and advice among Margaret and her peers about periods and bras. One must? Their arm-pumping exercise and chant: “We must, we must, we must increase our bust!”

“That not only had to be in there, it had to be perfect,” Craig said.

But Margaret’s story isn’t just about budding adolescence. She adjusts to life in suburban New Jersey after living in New York City and also explores religion, taking her first steps toward figuring out her voice and her place in the world.

As the film took shape, Craig said, “There were other things that I thought had to be in there. And then we ended up cutting, which was very hard, because I was so precious about all of it. But when you’re in the editing process, you really have to think about pacing, and think about where you have a little extra drag, and pull all that out.”

HONE THE CHARACTERS’ VOICES

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. has tween angst, but it’s also quite funny. When Margaret and one friend test their nerve by buying feminine pads, Margaret adds a package of mints to their purchase as if she’s done this all her life.

Other jokes zing through dialogue, particularly that of Nancy (Elle Graham, She Said), the suburban queen-bee wannabe who befriends Margaret. Nancy says lines such as, “You’re still flat” and “I live in the bigger house up the street,” leaving Margaret wondering whether she’s obliviously tactless or just plain rude. 

“I loved writing Nancy,” Craig said with a laugh. “I think the key to a great mean girl is that she’s not outright mean. It’s very subtle, and you can sort of think, 'Well, was she insulting me?'… At least that was my experience at that age. Sometimes it was just a look or a pause that went on too long.”

She also encouraged Graham to improvise, which paid off during the bust exercise scene where Nancy, proud of her AA cup, introduces the move with a flourish. When one of the girls says, “Does that really work?” she says, “I’m living proof!”

BE FLEXIBLE

Craig said working as a director is “illuminating on so many levels,” especially with the cadences of dialogue. “You learn that something that sounded good on the page, when you hear it out loud, you realize what a mouthful it is or how long it goes on. … You learn that in the casting process, too, because you’ll have a bunch of people all trip over one thing, and you’re like, ‘That’s not your fault. That’s mine. I need to change that.’”

Directing also clued her in about having flexibility in the script, “just leaving the door open in your writing,” because so much can change on set.

FOLLOW THE THEME

One reason Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. is so beloved is because of how timeless the story is. “There is something reassuring about knowing our moms and grandmas and all of the women throughout history have gone through the same thing,” Craig has said.

In a huge change from the page to the screen, Craig extended the coming-of-age theme to Barbara and Sylvia, showing the former exploring what kind of mom to be and the latter trying new things now that her family isn’t living nearby. Margaret is still the focus, but her mother’s and grandmother’s subplots give the film a rich, layered feeling.

“I wanted to show that all of them are struggling through a life transition at the same time,” Craig said. “We’re all, I think—at least I am—always going through that journey over and over again, as I do new things that are uncomfortable for me and where I feel like I’m an awkward eleven-year-old again. It’s sort of like you come of age at all sorts of ages.”

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Only in theaters on April 28, 2023.