Based on Judy Blume's seminal coming of age book, young Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) is eleven and has to move from school and friends to New Jersey where she starts her journey into puberty with 3 new girl friends all competing about boob size, getting their period first and boys.
This all seems so real and spot on and much of it is simply hysterical. It does though look more broadly at growing up and the the less obvious troubles one faces in becoming your own person rather than who everyone else wants you to be, which at 11 is tricky. This part of the story is focussed here on religion for which Margaret does a school project on and comes to realise that picking a religion is difficult and not actually necessarily a must do when her grandparents - Jewish and Christian give her grief over the right way forward. It's all handled very nicely with the young girls, especially Fortson and Elle Graham, all excellent with great support from Rachel McAdams as her mum and the wonderful Kathy Bates as the doting Jewish grandmother. Funny and sweet.
This all seems so real and spot on and much of it is simply hysterical. It does though look more broadly at growing up and the the less obvious troubles one faces in becoming your own person rather than who everyone else wants you to be, which at 11 is tricky. This part of the story is focussed here on religion for which Margaret does a school project on and comes to realise that picking a religion is difficult and not actually necessarily a must do when her grandparents - Jewish and Christian give her grief over the right way forward. It's all handled very nicely with the young girls, especially Fortson and Elle Graham, all excellent with great support from Rachel McAdams as her mum and the wonderful Kathy Bates as the doting Jewish grandmother. Funny and sweet.