“Are You there, God? ‘It’s Me, Margaret’ Director on the Pressure of Adapting Judy Blume’s Iconic Novel – Contenders Film LA

Kelly Fremon Craig, the writer, director and producer of Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaretshared what inspired her to contact Judy Blume about adapting the popular coming-of-age novel into a film.

At Deadline’s Contenders Film Los Angeles event on Saturday, Craig said this afterward The edge of seventeenShe thought about what lay ahead and thought about writers who had influenced her life.

“The first person that came to mind was Judy Blume,” she said during the panel about her film. “I mean, she really turned me into a reader and a writer. I started rereading all her books with the idea of ​​adapting them.”

Craig said Blume posted on social media around the same time that she was thinking about her book choices, but the one thing she didn’t want to edit was Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret.

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Craig then sent Blume an email she called “a love letter.” “I just poured my heart out to her and told her how much her work meant to me,” the filmmaker said. “As far as I can remember, she was really the first person to talk to me and make me feel like I wasn’t the only one, especially at that age. Her writing is so honest, and I think that’s a gift at the age where you really feel like you’re the only person in the world experiencing something.

Producer Julie Ansell emphasized that it was important to them to “make Julie Blume happy with the adaptation.”

“It was kind of the pressure throughout the filmmaking and everything to make a movie that really did justice to what the book is,” Ansell said. “Judy was there and gave us a lot of support.”

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The film adaptation of Blume’s novel left Craig “paralyzed” when she wrote the first draft of the screenplay because she “didn’t want to do it.” [Blume] off.”

“I respect her tremendously,” Craig added. “And that is her legacy. So it was very important to get it right. That started to change for me when I got to a place mentally where if I could just convey the spirit of the book, even if I made changes, everything would have served its purpose.

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Abby Ryder Fortson, who plays Margaret Simon, hopes the film will start the conversation.

“I think we live in a time where people are a little uncomfortable talking about puberty and the changes in your body and all the different ways you change through your years in high school, in high school, etc. will be uncomfortable feel and the rest will feel ashamed. of your life. Your life,” she said. “I think films can be a wonderful barrier to lighten these conversations. I think if parents can show this to their kids, they can have more conversations about the character.

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Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret Also starring Rachel McAdams as Barbara Simon and Kathy Bates as Sylvia Simon.

Come back on Monday for the panel video.

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