Tag: coming of age

Movie Review: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret

Themes discussed in this post: adolescence, sexuality, puberty, friendship, faith/religion, family

A few weeks ago, I watched this really good movie called Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Even though I have not read the book by Judy Blume, I still really wanted to see the movie because I really love the actress Rachel McAdams, and she is in this movie, so I really wanted to see it. It is about this young woman named Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) who moves from New York City to New Jersey with her parents, Herbert (Benny Safdie) and Barbara (Rachel McAdams). Margaret struggles with puberty, friendships and her religious identity, but she ultimately realizes that it all is just a part of growing up. I love this film, too, because I watch a lot of coming-of-age movies. Somehow watching coming-of-age movies makes me feel less alone, because even though I am no longer a teenager, it is cool to see how other young people navigate their young adulthood in movies. I didn’t go to a lot of parties or date growing up, so I always find watching coming-of-age movies fascinating because these kids in the movie are going through all of these different developmental stages and figuring out who they are, and it has helped me gain a new perspective on what growing up is like based on people’s individual experiences. Young adulthood isn’t going to be the same for everybody because each individual grows up with a different cultural background, and each culture has its own traditions and beliefs about what it means to be an adult and enter adulthood. I am still a young adult even though I am no longer a teenager, but I sometimes feel behind because I have not accomplished all of these traditional milestones of adulthood, like buying my first mortgage, getting married and having a child. That’s why I love watching coming-of-age movies, because watching them reminds me that growing up is just a part of life and you are still figuring out your identity and your brain is still developing, so it is important to set your own timelines and milestones because everyone develops differently.

One of the key themes in this film is religious identity and faith. Margaret’s father is Jewish, and her mother grew up with conservative Christian parents. Margaret’s teacher has the class write a personal essay about a topic of their interest and Margaret’s teacher suggests that she write about religion because she wrote that she doesn’t like religious holidays in a writing assignment done in class. When the teacher asks her to explain more about that, Margaret tells him that it is because her father is Jewish and in New Jersey she is around a lot of kids who celebrate Christmas and are Christian, so she feels embarrassed because she grew up in a different faith than everyone else. Margaret’s mom, Barbara, won’t tell her why her parents never come to visit the family. Margaret is close with Sylvia, her grandmother on her dad’s side, but she doesn’t know anything about her mom’s side of the family. One day after school, Margaret approaches Barbara and asks her why her mom and dad don’t come to see them or why they are not in contact with Margaret’s family. Barbara at first doesn’t want to talk about it, but after Margaret expresses genuine interest in knowing why, Barbara tells her that her parents disowned her for marrying a Jewish man because they are strict Christians and thought marrying a Jewish man would go against their beliefs. It is a really painful moment for Barbara to tell her daughter this because it caused her a lot of pain that her family didn’t want to speak to her simply because she married someone of a different faith than Christianity. Throughout the movie, Margaret goes on her own journey to figure out what religion she should uphold, Judaism or Christianity. When she goes to New York City to visit her grandmother Sylvia, who is Jewish, she asks her grandmother if they can go to the local synagogue for one of the services. Sylvia is super excited to take her granddaughter to the synagogue, and when they arrive, she introduces Margaret to everyone there and helps translate what the rabbi is saying during the service since Margaret does not know Hebrew and the rabbi is speaking in Hebrew. After the service, Margaret talks to God and tells him that she isn’t sure how she feels about it because she thought it would be different somehow. However, her grandmother wants Margaret to commit to being Jewish and thinks that is what Margaret wants. Margaret’s mother, while writing greeting cards to loved ones, decides to send a greeting card to her mother and father, Mary and Paul Hutchins, without telling anyone, even though she knows deep down that her parents do not like her husband because he is Jewish. She thinks that her parents might have had a change of heart in the time that they have not been speaking to their daughter and her family, and they surprisingly write her back and let her know that they want to come to New Jersey to visit her. Margaret, however, has already made plans with her grandmother to come down to Florida and visit her. Her grandmother left New York City to go to Florida because she lives by herself after her family moves to New Jersey and is feeling lonely, so she moves to Florida to live in a retirement home. When Barbara tells her husband that her parents want to come visit, he is upset because he knows that they don’t like him because he is Jewish. Even though Barbara tells him that she is sorry and that she only wrote to them because she thought it would help mend her relationship with her parents, but Herbert is not convinced. When Margaret comes home from school, Barbara breaks the news and tells her that her parents are coming to visit them, but Margaret is upset because she wanted to visit her grandmother in Florida and already made plans to see her. Barbara gets on the phone and tells her that Margaret has to cancel her flight to Florida because her grandparents are coming to see them, and her grandmother, Sylvia, is upset because she wanted to spend quality time with her granddaughter. Honestly, I was worried that Margaret’s grandmother would unexpectedly die and that Margaret would regret not deciding to stick with her plan to visit her in Florida. However, Margaret’s grandmother decides to fly to New Jersey with Morris Binamin, the man she met at the retirement home, to visit Margaret and her family, even if Barbara’s parents are coming.

Margaret is super excited that her grandmother is there, but things take a turn when the family has dinner together. Barbara prepares a delicious pot roast, and everyone is enjoying the meal, but Sylvia decides to propose a toast during dinner and says “l’chaim” which means “to life” in Hebrew and is similar to saying “Cheers” in English. Barbara’s parents, Mary and Paul, are confused and upset even though they are trying to be polite. Even though Barbara and Herbert try to keep the tension low and change the subject, things erupt when Mary and Paul ask Margaret if she would be interested in going to Sunday school and becoming Christian, but Sylvia tells them that she is not going to Sunday school because she is Jewish. Sylvia argues with Mary and Paul about which faith Margaret should choose, and Herbert and Barbara try to intervene and say that Margaret is not going to choose what faith to take up until she becomes an adult. Finally, Margaret, sick and tired of hearing them argue, tells everyone to be quiet and that she is sick of them fighting over what faith she should uphold. She angrily runs up to her bedroom and slams the door. The adults feel bad that they caused this argument and Sylvia and Barbara’s parents leave in separate cabs. Margaret ends up writing in her essay to her teacher, Mr. Benedict, that she realized that religion causes conflict and war, and leaves the classroom in tears. I grew up practicing a different religion, so I could not relate to what Margaret was going through, but I can’t imagine how difficult it is to have adults fighting over what religion you should practice at a time when you are still developing your own identity and figuring out what you want in life. I thought about this experience I read about in this Buddhist magazine I read, and it was about this young woman who grew up in three different religions: Buddhism, Christianity and Judaism. She wrote about how she wanted to help end religious conflict, and looking back, after watching this movie, I really appreciate her for wanting to make that cause of helping end religious conflict. I grew up with parents who grew up Christian but started practicing Buddhism later on after seeing how it helped them transform their lives, and they raised me and my sister to practice Buddhism. But they never put pressure on us to accept Buddhism or chant every day. I still practice Buddhism because I have seen the positive changes and personal growth that I have gone through in the course of practicing it, and as I get older, I still feel like every day is a new day for growth. I think without having this philosophy in my life, I would not know what purpose my life was for.

And honestly, as I am writing this, I am reflecting on how important it is to have dialogues between people of different faiths. In college, I was really happy because they had an Interfaith Council club on campus, and even though I didn’t get to go to a ton of meetings since I was busy with schoolwork and orchestra, going to even just a few meetings felt really comforting. Everyone was respectful of each other’s beliefs, and I learned a lot from listening to people talk about their personal experiences being Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and other religions. I also got to talk about how I was born into a family that practices Buddhism and how I apply the principles of Buddhism to my daily life.

Another theme in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is fitting in, being true to yourself and finding genuine friendships. When Margaret’s parents tell her that they are moving to New Jersey, Margaret is upset and tells her parents that she doesn’t want to move because she has so many friends in her hometown and would miss all of them if they moved. When they first move into their new home in New Jersey, the family is still unpacking and there are boxes everywhere. A popular girl in the neighborhood named Nancy invites Margaret to come over to her house and play in the sprinklers, and right off the bat tells Margaret that her house is much larger than hers. Nancy’s family is wealthy, and they live in a big house, and when Margaret changes her clothes to put on her bathing suit, Nancy looks at Margaret’s body and starts making comments about how she is flat-chested. Nancy is obsessed with boys and growing breasts, while Margaret is shy and isn’t at first interested in that stuff. However, Margaret, like the other kids, wants to fit in, so she goes with what Nancy tells her to do. One of the rules of Nancy’s exclusive club is that they cannot wear socks. Margaret’s mom tells her to wear socks and asks her why she isn’t wearing socks on her first day of school. Margaret doesn’t want to tell her that Nancy told her to not wear socks, and she endures blisters on her heels instead of deciding to say “Fuck it” to Nancy’s no-sock rule and wear socks. Nancy also loves to gossip about her other classmates, including a tall girl named Laura Danker who has large breasts and keeps to herself. However, later in the film, Margaret sees that Nancy is deeply insecure about herself and is just an insecure mean girl. Nancy also lies to Margaret about when she gets her period. Even though she sends Margaret a postcard from a family trip, excitedly saying, “I got my period!” to prove she wasn’t the last one to get it, during a restaurant dinner with Nancy and her family, Nancy goes to the restroom and is crushed to find out that she actually didn’t get her period during the family trip. She got her period that evening during the family dinner at the restaurant. Margaret witnesses the entire exchange between Nancy and her mom, who has Margaret fetch Nancy a pad from the sanitary pad dispenser, and when Nancy comes out of the restroom stall, her face stained with tears, Margaret gives her a look of disappointment and anger because one of the rules that Margaret formed for the exclusive girls’ club was that everyone had to tell the truth, and even though Nancy swore she would tell the truth, she did not keep that promise.

Margaret also realizes that Nancy isn’t a very great friend and realizes that Laura Danker, who was the target of everyone’s bullying, is actually a good friend. Unlike the other girls, Laura doesn’t gossip, and she also has integrity. During a party at their classmate’s house, the students play a game where they have to go into a bathroom in pairs and kiss each other. Laura gets paired with a shorter boy and everyone snickers at her, making Laura feel humiliated. Nancy spreads rumors about Laura, telling Margaret that Laura lets the male students feel up her breasts. While Margaret and Laura are in the library working on an assignment for class, Laura catches Margaret cheating on the assignment. When Margaret shrugs it off, Laura tells her that what she is doing is dishonest. Margaret gets angry with Laura and lashes out, telling her that she knows about Laura letting the boys feel her breasts. Hurt, Laura storms out of the library and Margaret runs after her, apologizing. Laura goes into the Catholic church where she confesses to a priest and Margaret follows her. Margaret decides to confess to the priest even though she is not Catholic, but she is so embarrassed for how she treated Laura that she ends up running out of the church and not confessing to the priest. Margaret realizes that everything that Nancy told her about Laura Danker was not true, and that Laura, unlike Nancy, is a genuine person. I remember when I was in middle school and I felt insecure about myself. To cope with low self-esteem, I decided to get involved in gossip about other classmates. I also wrote in my diary how much I hated my classmates, but looking back, I hated my classmates because I deeply hated myself. Margaret comes to understand that she doesn’t have to act like Nancy or anyone else in order to make friends at school. She can just be herself and she will find people who like her for who she is. I think that is why I love practicing Buddhism, because my mentor, Daisaku Ikeda, who was an educator and writer, encouraged young people to be true to themselves and not worry about following superficial trends or pretending to be someone they weren’t. When I chant this Buddhist mantra called Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, it gives me the courage to live in a way that is true to myself. Even though I do a lot of nerdy hobbies like reading, painting and knitting, I have learned to not feel bad about doing those things. I also consider myself to be an introvert at heart even though a lot of people think I am an extrovert. Growing up, I used to hate being called shy and quiet, but as I got older, I learned that I don’t need to really worry too much what other people think about my personality, and that as long as I am working on developing myself and growing as a person, then I am on the right path in life. Even though it is a challenging process, it has been very rewarding in the long run. Sometimes I read my old journals and think, Wow, I am so glad I journaled during my teenage years because I had so many emotions to process. I didn’t experience the same ecstatic enthusiasm about getting my period, though. I was too busy having painful menstrual cramps to enjoy it. I do remember my mom and I eating chocolate cake and ice cream while watching School of Rock with Jack Black to celebrate me being on my period, though. However, the brief celebration about getting my period was, well, short-lived. While watching the girls in the movie chanting “We must, we must, WE MUST INCREASE OUR BUSTS!!!” and squealing about who was going to get their period first, as hilarious as it was to watch this scene, I couldn’t really relate to be honest. In school, my big boobs got a lot of unwanted attention. Boys would constantly stare at them, and it made me feel uncomfortable. Also, as I got older and my breasts increased in size, it became harder to fit in clothes. Also, period cramps were–and always will be–very painful. My period cramps were so painful that I found myself in the high school bathroom stall vomiting and curling up on the floor in fetal position until my parents came to pick me up from school. I REALLY hate period cramps. They were the bane of my existence throughout high school, college and even well into my early 30s continue to be the bane of my existence. I remember watching a commercial from a menstrual products company called Hello Flo, and the girl in the commercial pretends to get her period by putting red nail polish on a pad. All of her friends got their periods except for her, so she pretends that she got it. Even though her mother secretly knows that the girl put red nail polish on the pad, she pretends to be excited and throws her daughter a “first moon party,” inviting her grandpa, friends and other people in the neighborhood to celebrate her daughter’s first period. The daughter is extremely embarrassed, especially because her mom chose a bunch of corny games like “Pin the Pad on the Period” and had a fondue fountain with red fondue to look like period blood. The mom reveals to her daughter at the end of the commercial that she knew her little red-nail-polish-on-the-pad trick and gets her daughter a Hello Flo period starter kit. It is a really funny commercial. Here it is below:

I know this was a really lengthy review, so if you have made it this far or even read a paragraph, let alone a single sentence, thank you for your long attention. Long story short: I recommend you see Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. 2023. Runtime: 1 hr 46 minutes. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving sexual education and some suggestive material.

Movie Review: Mid 90s

I just finished watching a really excellent movie called mid 90s. I really love A24’s movies so this one caught my eye and the trailer looked really good. The movie takes place in 1990s Los Angeles, and it was directed and written by actor Jonah Hill. While not all of it is based in her personal experience, one of his experiences growing up was listening to ’90s hip hop, which is heavily featured on the film soundtrack for each of the scenes. It was really interesting to watch this movie because nowadays it is so hard to imagine a time before we had smartphones. In the movie, people talk face-to-face, not a single person is looking down at a cell phone, of course because this was the 1990s, way before smartphones came out. But it just made me think how social interactions have changed so much since the introduction of smartphones. That was just a little detail I thought of while watching this movie.

The movie opens with Stevie (Sunny Suljic) being beaten up by his older brother, Ian (Lucas Hedges) and then going into his brother’s bedroom and looking at his albums and taking notes. The scene cuts to him eating at a restaurant with Ian and their mom, Dabney. Stevie gives Ian a CD as a gift, but Ian puts it down without thanking him or looking at the gift. They have a very complicated relationship because Ian is older and constantly beats up Stevie. Stevie doesn’t have many friends, but all that changes when he looks across the street and finds a group of guys skateboarding and cussing out a storeowner. Intrigued, Stevie goes to the local skateboard shop where they hang out. At first, they aren’t keen on him since he is so young and shy, and one of the guys in the group, Ruben, gives Stevie hate, making him feel bad for saying thank you and just being himself. A lot of Ruben’s bullying gets to Stevie, and he starts to develop a hard shell, and starts drinking and smoking. He sneaks out to hang with the guys and skateboard and this worries his mom and his brother, Ian, who is trying to protect him. Ian, though, isn’t all that much of a role model himself. When he tries to get a new skateboard, Ian has Stevie sneak into his mom’s bedroom and steal $80 from her drawer, and Stevie refuses to take accountability for what he did, putting the blame on Ian and prompting Ian to beat him up. Stevie starts to give into peer pressure, and there is one scene where he goes to a party and hooks up with a woman who is much older than him and brags to his friends afterwards about losing his virginity. Stevie also starts to become aggressive towards his mom and Ian, and after he gets drunk and stoned at the party Ian yells at him and Stevie beats him up. When his mother takes him to his friends to say goodbye because she is not coming back after all the shenanigans he got up to, they get in the car, and he screams “Fuck you” over and over again to her. Ray, who is the level-headed one in the group, starts to notice that Stevie’s behavior has changed, and tries to protect Stevie and remind him that he doesn’t have to be anyone other than himself to be in the group.

This movie shows how important it is to be true to yourself and to follow your dreams even when your circumstances or people make you feel like you can’t accomplish them. One of the people in the skateboarding group, Fourth Grade, wants to be a filmmaker. However, Fuckshit and Ruben, the other guys in the group, make him feel bad and make fun of his dreams of making movies. This really affects Fourth Grade’s self-esteem and he gives into everyone’s negativity and says that he should give up on his dream. However, he continues to make films, and in one scene where everyone is skating in the park, Fourth Grade films Ray and Fuckshit talking to a guy about their skateboarding and their dreams and it’s three people just talking heart-to-heart about life. Fourth Grade puts together a really cool film that features footage of everyone skateboarding, going to parties and hanging out together. It serves as a reminder of how important it is to not give into other people telling you that your dreams aren’t worth working towards. This scene also showed how these four guys really treasured each other’s friendships with one another. Even though they didn’t always get along with one another, they continued to have each other’s backs through both the good times and the bad times. Of course, at the end, they all had to take accountability for nearly getting Stevie killed in the accident, but Stevie still wanted to be friends with them because they made him feel like he belonged and that is what Stevie really wanted because he didn’t have many friends at the beginning of the movie and he wanted to get away from his problems at home. I don’t know much about skateboarding culture, to be honest, but I think it’s a human need to want to belong somewhere so it makes sense that Stevie would find the crowd that he did. The movie also showed me though that even in a group of people, you need to be yourself and know yourself so that you don’t get influenced too much by what everyone else is doing.

Stevie has this quiet strength that I actually admired while watching the movie. When he thanks Ruben for giving him a cigarette, Ruben makes fun of him for saying “thank you” and tells him not to say “thank you” because it will somehow make him less than. However, when Ray gives Stevie a new skateboard and Stevie asks if he can thank him, Ray is confused why Stevie is asking to say “thank you,” and Stevie tells him what Ruben told him. Ray tells him that saying thank you is common manners and that he shouldn’t feel bad about saying thank you. Ray is the only one in the group who seems to stand up for Stevie and appreciate his uniqueness rather than tearing him down. This part reminded me of when I was in fifth grade, and I would always say hello to people and say thank you and sorry all the time, and people would often joke, “Stop being so polite,” and my guidance counselor even pulled me into her office to explain to me that I shouldn’t be too polite. I understand where she was coming from in retrospect, because she didn’t want me to become a pushover, which is what happened at some point in school unfortunately. I think after a while I started to become very self-conscious about it and thought, Maybe these kids are right. Maybe something is wrong with me and I need to stop being polite all the time. But there were some adults though who reminded me to keep being true to myself and I still appreciate these people to this day. I really appreciate that Ray told Stevie that it’s okay to say thank you and be himself rather than trying to fit in with anyone else or make himself look cool, because it reminded me that I can be true to myself and that while I am naturally going to grow and learn from life and change, I don’t have to change to seek anyone else’s approval. It’s still a work in progress to develop my sense of self and become more confident in who I am, but it helps to know that a lot of people are going through that same journey in their own unique way.

Stevie, Ray, Fourth Grade, Fuckshit and Ruben realize at a crucial moment just how precious their friendship really is when Fuckshit, who is drunk, drives around with everyone in the car and gets in a near fatal car accident. The car flips over and everyone is injured, but Stevie actually has to go to the emergency room and no one knows if he is going to live or not. His brother, Ian, doesn’t give him a hard time but just sits in silence at Stevie’s bedside. Stevie’s mom goes to the hospital and finds all of Stevie’s friends in the waiting room. She had assumed they didn’t care about Stevie and were just going to abandon him after the accident, but the fact that they showed up for him probably changed the way she felt about Stevie’s friends at that moment, and so she lets them go into the hospital room to see Stevie because she realizes that these people really are genuine friends to Stevie, even when they got him in a lot of trouble. I think this is a crucial moment for Stevie and his friends because they realize that they really do care about their lives and that they need to look out for each other.

I also loved the scene where Ray talks with Stevie after Stevie has a fight with his mom. Ray opens up and tells him that even though he thinks he is the only one dealing with a difficult home life, he isn’t the only one because everyone in their friend group is dealing with something. Ruben’s mom beats up on him and his sister when he gets home, Ray’s brother died after getting hit by a car, Fourth Grade struggles with money and couldn’t even afford socks, and Fuckshit is continuing to party and drink recklessly. I think this was really courageous of Ray to open up like this to Stevie because at the beginning when Stevie meets everyone, they make fun of him for being shy and not knowing how to smoke or fit in with them, but when Ray tells Stevie that everyone in the group has their own personal challenges, it helps him establish that trust with Stevie so that Stevie doesn’t need to feel like he is the only one who is dealing with challenges and insecurities. I remember in high school and college I would often compare myself to my peers, thinking how much fun they were having with each other and how everyone’s lives seemed to be more perfect. It seemed I was the only one dealing with low self-esteem and insecurities while everyone else on the outside seemed perfectly confident. However, I remember seeing a counselor during my first year of college and she told me that it seems like everyone on the outside is cool as a cucumber and everyone is confident, but in reality, everyone during that first year of college was also dealing with insecurities and a lack of self-confidence, and they, too, were also wondering, How am I going to make friends? How am I going to do it all? Even though it wasn’t overnight, I have gradually come to develop more confidence in myself and have realized that everyone has problems, many people struggle with feeling good about themselves, and that I’m not the only one with issues. I thin especially in this age of social media and the Internet it can be easy to pretend to seem confident and perfectly put together, but in reality, as I have learned over the years, life really isn’t that simple and even though someone may be successful, they still are human beings and deal with different struggles. I may not have the same struggle as someone else, but I can develop the compassion to understand what they are going through. It is much easier for me to envy other people’s lives and compare my life to others, but as I have learned over the years, that only led me to harbor feelings of bitterness and jealousy at not having achieved what others had, so it made it hard for me to genuinely be happy for others since I couldn’t be happy for myself. I think reading Daisaku Ikeda’s writings really encouraged me to keep growing and studying, and to also strive towards my own goals.

Overall, this was a really excellent film. I also really love the score. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross collaborated on the score; I really loved the work they did on the score for another movie I love called Soul. And I love the songs they chose for the movie because I have been getting into 1990s hip-hop in recent years, so I have been listening to the Notorious B.I.G. and A Tribe Called Quest. I looked at the credits and saw that “Kiss From a Rose” by Seal was featured in the movie, and I was like, What? When!?! So I re-winded the movie and sure enough, if you listen closely, the song is playing in the restaurant that Stevie, Dabney and Ian are eating at. It’s one of my favorite songs and growing up in the 1990s it was something I would listen to on the radio a lot, so I was pretty excited that it was featured in the movie. I also really love the way the movie is filmed. At the beginning it was really cool when the skateboards spell out A24. I thought that was very fitting because it served as an introduction to one of the key themes of the movie, which is skateboarding. Of course, looking back, the movie was so much more than just about skateboarding. It was a coming-of-age movie that shows the ups and downs of being a teenager and growing up and trying to fit in.

Mid 90s. 2018. 1 hr 25 min. Written and directed by Jonah Hill. Rated R for pervasive language, sexual content, drug and alcohol use, some violent behavior/ disturbing images-all involving minors.