The Big Picture · Review · Discussion · Top Five · Interview
April 28, 2023/ 94 min/ Sean Fennessey · Amanda Dobbins
Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins review Kelly Fremon Craig's 'Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret' and David Lowery's 'Peter Pan & Wendy,' then trade top-five coming-of-age lists before Sean sits down with Fremon Craig herself.
24 films across 7 segments.
AI-generated This episode was transcribed and analyzed with AI models. The matches aren't perfect — expect the occasional misheard title or a link to the wrong film.
'Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret'Judy Blume, adapted
Directed by Kelly Fremon Craig, adapting Judy Blume's 1970 novel. Both hosts cried. Amanda credits the movie with fully realizing the mother and grandmother, who barely register as characters in the book's first-person, kid's-eye telling; Rachel McAdams and Kathy Bates get real arcs of their own, including a plotline about the mother's suburban restlessness that Blume based on her own life.
'Peter Pan & Wendy'streaming on Disney+
David Lowery's live-action Disney adaptation. Both hosts pan it: flat performances, ugly digital sets, and a new Captain Hook backstory (raised as a Lost Boy, exiled by Peter) neither wanted. Sean says the few scenes shot on real locations are the only beautiful thing in the movie.
The original animated film, referenced throughout. Amanda rewatched it and found the racial stereotyping much harder to sit with than she remembered, to the point she wouldn't show it to her son.
What else Disney has cominglive-action remakes, cont'd
New character posters just dropped at CinemaCon; Sean says the trailer hasn't looked strong.
Directed by Marc Webb, who made '500 Days of Summer' and the 2010s Spider-Man movies.
Barry Jenkins directing; the hosts riff on which Shakespeare play it's secretly remaking (Richard III? Twelfth Night? Macbeth?) without landing on an answer.
Amanda's Top Five Coming-of-Age Moviesranked best to worst
No. 1. Greta Gerwig, Amanda's hero. Set in 2002, a year younger than Amanda was at the time, down to the Dave Matthews needle drops.
Shown to her at a conservative high school. The floating-underwater, lost-at-sea imagery has stuck with her ever since.
Her Sofia Coppola pick, adapted from Jeffrey Eugenides: a group of sisters' story told through the neighborhood boys watching them from outside.
Ben Stiller's Winona Ryder/Ethan Hawke/Ben Stiller love triangle. Amanda says it taught her what counted as cool in the '90s.
Carey Mulligan's breakout role, directed by Lone Scherfig: a high-achieving London teenager pulled into a more glamorous adult world before getting her life back on track.
Sean's Top Five Coming-of-Age Moviesranked best to worst
No. 1. Sean's favorite high school movie ever made; he's done a full 'Rewatchables' episode on it and interviewed Richard Linklater multiple times.
John Singleton's debut, made in his early 20s, with Laurence Fishburne as Furious Styles.
Céline Sciamma's debut feature, which Sean discovered after 'Portrait of a Lady on Fire': a girl chasing a spot on her town's synchronized swim team.
Peter Bogdanovich's black-and-white con-artist story, starring real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O'Neal. Sean pairs it in his head with 'The Last Picture Show.'
Steve James' three-hour documentary following William Gates and Arthur Agee toward basketball scholarships out of Chicago.
Honorable mentionsthe ones that didn't make the list
Sean's long-running argument: Cameron, not Ferris, is the one who actually changes in this movie.
Shown in Amanda's high school too. Both hosts say it's less a personal coming-of-age story than portraiture of a whole social system.
Amanda argues it belongs in a different bucket: more social satire than one character's personal reckoning.
Sean's example of the kind of funny ensemble movie missing from both their lists.
In conversation
Her directorial debut, also about a teenage girl. After it did well, she read a lot of scripts before landing on Margaret, the first thing that gave her the 'I need to write this' feeling.
She hadn't reread the book since she was 11; this time she related to the mother and grandmother instead. Judy Blume was involved throughout, reading drafts and visiting set. Hans Zimmer scored it through his longtime relationship with producer James L. Brooks. Abby Ryder Fortson was cast as Margaret after Fremon Craig saw a long line of girls for the part.
Also mentioned raised along the way
Sofia Coppola's other films Lost in TranslationMarie AntoinetteSomewhere
The Bogdanovich/Wenders thread The Last Picture ShowWhat's Up, Doc?Alice in the Cities
Linklater's other coming-of-age movies BoyhoodThe School of RockSlackerBefore SunriseBefore Sunset
Greta Gerwig's other films Little WomenFrances HaKicking and Screaming
Céline Sciamma's other films Portrait of a Lady on FirePetite Maman
Coming-of-age documentaries mentioned Judy Blume ForeverMinding the GapSpellboundJesus Camp
In passing A Room with a ViewBarbieFight ClubPete's DragonCasablanca
Not films filtered out: TV, games, ads
TV BarrySuccessionThe White LotusSesame Street
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