In 1970’s New York City, a self conscious awkward pre-teen girl desperately struggles to survive the chaos of her Mother’s drug addicted bipolar mania and fundamentalist religious cult.

I’m not sure that you need both “awkward” and “self-conscious”. I think what you want us to know about the character comes across with either.

What’s the inciting incident that kicks this story off? Check out the “Our formula” tab at the top for help with this but it should be something that sets up the goal and decides the protagonist’s course of action for the runtime. Richiev’s comment highlights that, currently, your protagonist doesn’t have a goal in the logline. The goal you have replied with “stability, security, fitting in, feeling normal” is fine but it really needs to be something visual that the audience can see on screen. Film is a visual medium after all. What actually happens at the climax of the movie?

Clearly the mother has a big part to play in this story so I would suggest thinking of a scene relating to her mother (she comes home to find her mother has overdosed) and then a corresponding goal (help get her mother sober). In the process, her internal goal can be to feel more “normal” or at least accept herself for who she is, but externally this all needs to be visually represented by other things because we can’t see what’s going on inside a character’s head. ?If you describe her as “awkward”, this goes someway to suggesting that her arc is one of self-assurance and new found confidence.

I’m not really sure where the cult comes into play. It feels like a bit of tag on at the end as it currently stands – if it’s important I think we may need a little more information about it and how the mother is involved. I would potentially either pick drugs or the cult though. Both feels a bit much but this is simply my opinion based on the information I’ve been given in this version of the logline.

Is there a reason why it’s set in 1970s NYC?

Hope this helps.