Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

Stories about pre-teen girls find a natural rhythm with the hero’s journey. The call to adventure, facing allies and enemies, crossing the threshold of the mortal world—an eleven-year-old girl can experience all of this during one lunch period. When Margaret moves from Manhattan to suburban New Jersey, it begins her harrowing journey through the messiness, questioning, and excitement of becoming a teenager. An essential story.

Soon, Margaret falls into a girl alliance with her neighborhood tween compatriots: Nancy, the confident alpha, innocent and friendly Janie, and dry and self-deprecating Gretchen. They promise to tell each other everything, about boys, bras, and most importantly, when they get their first periods (which for them is a coveted sign of grownup-ness, not a monthly scourge). It’s impossible to watch and not remember oneself at that age—the fear that comes with change, the secret passageways of communication, how huge everything feels. It’s a nostalgia trip that doesn’t reduce puberty to an awkward cringe-fest and remembers to take it seriously.

Abby Ryder Fortson, the young actress who plays Margaret, is entirely charming and believable as a thoughtful eleven-year-old asking big questions of herself and her surroundings. With parents in an interfaith marriage (Christian and Jewish), raising her without religion, she’s at an existential crossroads, trying and failing to define a relationship with God, testing new pathways of spirituality. The way the film intertwines the threads of puberty, religious crisis, and girl friendship is effortless, with one feeding into another, feeling true to life.

The portraits of the adults in Margaret’s life are as well-drawn as those of the girls. Her parents—city bohemians turned New Jersey suburbanites—are trying to do right by their daughter and themselves. They’re not uncomplicated angels, nor are they oppressive. Rachel McAdams’s performance as Margaret’s mother is beautiful to watch, as she tries to shepherd her daughter through the murky waters of religion, a topic she herself isn’t quite settled on. Margaret’s Grandmother Sylvia, (Bates) is hilarious every time she’s on screen, but isn’t denied emotional weight, as she tries to win Margaret over to her side, getting wrapped up in her own desires in the process.

The film fleshes out its characters generously, and enjoys a pastel-hued 1960s suburbia with a folk-heavy soundtrack to match. Like the best films, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret is a story about a particular girl in a particular moment that easily transcends into a universally relatable story about growing up and finding yourself, and honoring the people who take you there.