Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. ***1/2
Kelly Fremon Cr aig’s adaptation of Judy Blume’s seminal tween coming-of-age novel works beautifully because it captures what Blume always understood: that “coming-of-age” is about both biological and emotional development. Set in 1970, it follows 11-year-old Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson) as she begins her sixth-grade year in the midst of upheaval, with her family relocating from New York City to the New Jersey suburbs. That throws the anxieties of a new school and finding new friends on top of the adolescent worries about bodily changes, and tensions involving the mixed-religion background of her parents (Rachel McAdams and Benny Safdie). Craig (The Edge of Seventeen) has a fantastic center to her story in Fortson’s performance, which is funny and sincere in evoking the need during that moment in life to just “be normal.” But Craig amplifies the story’s themes by paying attention to the confusion faced by Margaret’s mom over her own next phase in life; like so many of the best coming-of-age stories, this one understands the paradigm shift of realizing that growing up doesn’t mean suddenly having all the answers. There’s just a deft touch to every potentially challenging topic, from menstruation to religious exploration to peer pressure, adding up to a lovely character study full of warmth and understanding about how hard it is not just becoming a woman, but being one. Available April 28 in theaters. (PG-13)

Peter Pan & Wendy **1/2
Director David Lowery’s 2016 version of Pete’s Dragon was one of the only examples among Disney’s recent IP-reboot binge that felt completely willing to strike its own path separate from nostalgia-peddling—so it’s kind of a bummer to find him here unable to meld his fresh perspectives with the familiar beats of 1953’s Peter Pan. It begins in the London home of the Darling family, where adolescent Wendy (Ever Anderson) is about to leave her brothers John (Joshua Pickering) and Michael (Jacobi Jupe) for boarding school—until Peter Pan (Alexander Molony) and Tinker Bell (Yara Shahidi) arrive at their window to spirit them off to Neverland. Lowery and co-scripter Toby Halbrooks want to dig deeper into the anxieties of leaving childhood behind, including an expanded back-story for Hook (Jude Law). But it’s clear they’re mostly interested in delivering light-hearted adventure, which they’re successful enough at delivering whenever they’re not making sure we get all the necessary touchstones—chasing shadows, a crocodile attack, pirate ship battle, etc.—and making up for all of the original’s awkward racial material. Without committing more thoroughly to the emotional content, Peter Pan & Wendy mostly feels like another brand deposit, careful to include a musical nod to “You Can Fly” to accompany the Darling children soaring off on their fantastic journey. Available April 28 via Disney+. (PG)

Polite Society ***1/2
Writer/director Nida Manzoor’s frisky feature feels destined to be compared to other movies—a little bit Everything Everywhere All At Once, a little bit Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—but that would be missing out on what’s uniquely fun and culturally specific about its worldview. Ria (Priya Kansara) and Lena Khan (Ritu Arya) are British-Pakistani sisters each with unconventional career goals—Ria as a stuntwoman, Lena as a visual artist—that helps unite them. But when Lena unexpectedly ends up engaged to wealthy Salim (Akshay Khanna), Ria starts to suspect that something sinister is afoot. Manzoor mixes up plenty of genre sensibilities, drawing martial-arts epics, Bollywood musical, caper comedy and more, all while remaining committed to well-crafted jokes. At the same time, she’s exploring the familial expectations for Pakistani young women, both through Ria’s need to have a partner in outside-the-norm dreams and through the evolving arc of Salim’s mother (Ms. Marvel’s Nimra Bucha, again perfectly capturing comic-book melodrama). It’s not particularly spectacular at nailing its genre elements, with fight sequences that are more functional than inspired, and a bit of slackness in the pacing. With such solid character dynamics, though—and a thoroughly winning lead performance by Kansara—you wind up with 100 minutes of solid smiles and an entertaining delivery system for conveying a generational shift in gendered expectations. Available April 28 in theaters. (R)

Showing Up ***1/2
Over her 30-year career as a filmmaker, Kelly Reichardt has chosen to make movies that speak in a whisper, whether her subject was old friends on a camping trip or radical environmentalists plotting sabotage. Here, she applies her restrained approach beautifully to a character study of Lizzy Carr (Michelle Williams), a sculptor in Oregon whose preparations for her first big solo show are interrupted by a variety of distractions, from a lack of hot water to an injured pigeon to the mental-health issues of her brother (John Magaro). Reichardt and her long-time writing collaborator Jon Raymond are interested in providing a comprehensive picture of how hard it is to be a working artist, including the reality that Lizzy needs to work at a day job, doing clerical work at the arts college where her mother (Maryann Plunkett) is an administrator. But Williams—in her fourth collaboration with Reichardt—fleshes out that idea effortlessly, suggesting the mix of emotions involved as Lizzy’s landlord/kind-of-friend Jo (Hong Chau) seems to be finding greater success with her own artwork, and how even being part of a family of artists and art-lovers can feel like its own unique kind of pressure. The film’s title may or may not be connected to the Woody Allen-attributed quote that “90 percent of life is just showing up,” but Showing Up does capture with warmth and wit how even that part isn’t as easy as it seems. Available April 28 in theaters. (NR)

Sisu ***
There’s a time-honored cinematic genre—one that includes stuff like Rambo, the John Wick series and Taken—that could best be summarized as “you done messed with the wrong mf’er” movies. This entry from writer/director Jalmari Helander is set in 1944 Finland, with the Nazis in scorched-earth retreat. Encountering a Nazi company led by Obersturmführer Helldorf (Aksel Hennie) is a Finnish gold miner named Aatami Korpi (Jorma Tommila)—who also happens to be an ex-commando with an almost mythical history of bloody badassery. The movie’s title loosely translates as “relentlessness,” and that’s the concept on display both in Korpi’s determination to cash in his gold and in Helander’s scenes of creative carnage. Tommila’s mostly-wordless performance asks him to do little but absorb and dish out punishment, and Korpi’s motivations are pretty skimpy even for this kind of story. So all that remains is whether the action finds the sweet spot between making viewers cringe in sympathetic pain and making them giggle, and Helander mostly succeeds; it’s hard not to nod in approval at the inventive method this movie finds for Korpi to remain underwater for an unusual length of time. Dismemberments, impalements, self-surgery and the like fill the majority of the running time; you should already know for yourself if that’s a reason to stay away, or a reason to go. Available April 28 in theaters. (R)