Judy Blume introduces ‘Are You There God? It is Me, Margaret’ trailer, says the film is ‘higher than the e book’

Judy Blume has waited over 50 years to see her 1970 teen novel, Are You There, God? It is Me, Margaret get the big-screen remedy. And to say she’s happy with the outcome could be an understatement. Showing on Right now to introduce the primary trailer for the film model — which premieres in theaters on April 28 — the bestselling creator could not maintain again her enthusiasm.

“I like the film,” Blume raved. “What number of authors of the e book can say, ‘I believe that film is healthier than the e book’?”

Watch the primary trailer for Are You There, God? It is Me, Margaret under:

Blume additionally revealed that there was a powerful risk that her beloved e book would by no means get the Hollywood remedy. “I stated to my agent, ‘Margaret is off the desk; I am not promoting Margaret,” she recalled. However then she obtained a letter from author/director Kelly Fremon Craig that modified her stance. “[She wrote] a outstanding and passionate and humorous, intimate letter,” Blume stated. “She was very persuasive.”

It helped that the creator had seen and “actually appreciated” Craig’s debut characteristic, The Fringe of Seventeen, an acclaimed 2016 coming-of-age story starring Hailee Steinfeld that had its personal Blume vibes. Whereas that film is ready within the current day, the trailer for Margaret confirms that the movie will maintain the novel’s Nineteen Seventies setting because it depicts the title character’s first brush with puberty. Newcomer Abby Ryder Fortson performs Margaret, whereas Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie painting her mother and father, who’re clearly unprepared for the whirl of adlescent hormones about to descend on their home.

The trailer additionally makes it clear that Craig will maintain the realism of Blume’s e book intact, dealing actually with Margaret’s fears — and hopes — as her physique modifications. Upon its preliminary publication in 1970, Are You There, God? grew to become one of many first books geared toward younger adults to instantly deal with feminine menstruation and different indicators of puberty. Blume went on to jot down about teen life with comparable honesty in subsequent books like Then Once more, Perhaps I Will not and Endlessly…, the latter of which is being made right into a Netflix sequence.

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However that honesty did not please all readers. Within the Eighties, Blume’s YA books have been pulled from library cabinets amongst waves of conservative-led e book banning campaigns. And the creator remarked on Right now that these campaigns at the moment are again with a vengeance. “[They think] if my child does not examine it, it is by no means going to occur,” Blume stated. “Right now, it is even worse. … Guide banning is again in an enormous means, and a extremely horrifying and harmful means, as a result of it is change into uber-political.”

Fortuitously, Blume’s e book has a number of generations of followers who’re assured to point out up for the film model, as evidenced by the overwhelmingly optimistic Twitter reactions to the trailer.

Are You There, God? It is Me, Margaret premieres April 28 in theaters.