Aging — beloved YA author Judy Blume’s inevitable foil — isn’t so bad after all
Are you there, time? It’s her, Judy Blume. And the cherished author has no problem with you.
The writer of the 1970 coming-of-age novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” is now 85 and has officially entered her Hollywood era.
If it feels as if Blume is everywhere these days, it’s because she pretty much is. And rightfully so, thanks to the adaptation of her revered novel about the transition from girlhood to adolescence opening in theaters Friday, a streaming documentary about her life and a number of other productions in the works.
Judy Blume, James L. Brooks and Kelly Fremon Craig hash out — and argue over — how they finally came to adapt “Are Your There God? It’s Me, Margaret.”
After inspiring generations of writers for decades, the campaign to reacquaint the masses with Blume is well underway as she does the rounds to promote her latest forays. And, as this headline put it so succinctly, “Gen Z and Millennials, It’s Time You Got to Know Judy Blume. That is, if you haven’t already.
“I’m grateful to be 85 and in good condition,” Blume told in Glamour in an interview published Thursday.
“Aging is a part of life — you don’t get to decide or choose; it just happens to you,” she added. “Would I like to go back 40 years? Sure. But I’ve learned a lot.”
Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig’s adaptation, starring Abby Ryder Fortson and Rachel McAdams, captures spirit of the Judy Blume classic and reveals how contemporary it remains.
Forty seems to be the magic number for Blume. The author focused on midlife as her golden age because that’s when she crossed paths with her husband, George Cooper. The couple run an independent bookstore, Books & Books, in Key West, Fla.
“I keep going back to 40, because George and I met when we were around 40-ish, and life really began anew. We fell in love, and have had a lasting, wonderful relationship, which I never thought I would have when I was 40. So that’s huge,” she said.
But being an octogenarian isn’t so bad either.
“This is also a really sweet time between me and my kids. Being 85, your kids understand that you’re not going to be there forever. We are really enjoying one another right now, and I think we’re better friends than we’ve ever been,” she added.
Fifty-three years after the publication of Blume’s ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,’ the fight to destigmatize menstruation continues in film and TV.
But Blume, who has been using her platform to fight the present wave of book bans targeting kids’ books dealing with gender, sexuality and race, has been most protective of “Margaret” because it means so much to the women who have been telling her as much for the past five decades.
“It’s seeing yourself, when you think you’re the only one, and finding yourself in a book,” she told Glamour. “And today it’s seeing it again and bringing you right back to your childhood.”
The retired author has famously turned down offers to adapt her cherished novel into film and TV projects for years. Now, 53 years after “Are You There, God?” was published, Margaret’s story is finally hitting the big screen with Blume’s blessing. That’s due in no small part to the film’s director and screenwriter Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”) and storied producer James L. Brooks, whose shared credentials convinced the author to go Hollywood and whose insistence on keeping the story set in 1970 ultimately won her over.
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“It was one of the things, when Kelly and Jim came to visit me [in Florida], that I had to say to them. Because I wasn’t willing to do it if they tried to [update the story],” Blume recently told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t think it would have worked, so I never would have done it that way. Fortunately, they both said, ‘Absolutely 1970, that’s it.’”
In that same interview, Brooks — of “The Simpsons” and “Mary Tyler Moore” fame — quipped that updating Blume’s book “would be like updating the Bible!”
The new film stars Abby Ryder Fortson as the inquisitive Margaret Simon, Rachel McAdams as her mom Barbara and Kathy Bates as her dear grandmother Sylvia. It hit theaters Friday, just one week after “Judy Blume Forever,” a documentary about the writer’s effect on her fervent fanbase, her Reagan-era censorship and the outrage over Blume’s plain discussion of adolescent concerns. The documentary began streaming on Prime Video last Friday after premiering in January at the Sundance Film Festival.
Although Blume described the “Are You There God?” movie as “once in a lifetime,” she’s open to working on more films. Several other scripts based on Blume’s books are in development: Joe and Anthony Russo (of “Avengers: Endgame”) are producing an animated “Fudge” film, Mara Brock Akil (“Girlfriends”) is working on a series inspired by “Forever…” and a version of “Summer Sisters” is set to land on Peacock.
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