“Little Women”– Movie Review

This week at The New York Times’ Times Talks series, there was an advance screening of the drama, “Little Women”, adapted and directed by Greta Gerwig. 

Synopsis

As four sisters reach maturity in the 19th Century, will they be able to live life on their own terms in adulthood or are they destined to a life circumstances will impose on them?

Story

As an aspiring young author, one tough lesson that Jo March (Saoirse Ronan) is forced to learn early on is that if you are going to write a story where a woman is the main character, then by the end of that story, your heroine must either get married or die – otherwise, your story may never get published.  In these times shortly after the end of The Civil War, women who desired a career of some kind were expected to toe the line rather than do as they pleased. But Jo is not pursuing this line of work as a mere lark: she is doing it in part because she is trying to make money to help out her family, but also because she’s got the talent and a passion to write.

Jo has three sisters at home – Meg (Emma Watson), Amy (Florence Pugh) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen).  They are about as tightly-knit as sisters can possibly be. Marmee (Laura Dern) is their mother; she cares for the family while their father (Bob Odenkirk) serves as a chaplain in the waning days of the war.  Over time, the four sisters develop their own interests (some of them of the romantic variety) as well as their own personalities and preferences in life. Beth is a gifted pianist, Amy considers a career as an artist and as for Meg, she wouldn’t mind having a more traditional life of settling down with a husband and raising children. 

Fate has a way of interfering with plans and so it does with these young women:  Jo encounters occasional discouragement when her writing isn’t always appreciated; Meg gets married, but isn’t able to live the life she hoped because her husband is of limited financial means; although Amy is able to go to Paris to study painting, her affection for Laurie (Timothée Chalamet) remains unrequited because he has feelings for Jo.  The most serious problem of all belongs to Beth: she is diagnosed with scarlet fever after coming into contact with infected children. With Beth bedridden, Jo learns that she must put her writing ambitions on hold; she is summoned by Marmee to leave New York and return to the family home in Concord, Massachusetts where she will help to care for her sister.  Can Jo nurse Beth back to health and return to her writing career?        

Review

If you go onto either IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes and try to do a search for a movie adaptation of “Little Women”, you will find no less than seven versions.  The first one was made in 1933 and starred Katherine Hepburn. What makes Gerwig’s version different from the others is the fact that she doesn’t completely follow the traditional narrative of the novel from which it has been adapted.  Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how much of a purist you are; if you are expecting to see a movie that’s identical to the book, then it’s possible that you may be disappointed. 

For those that are familiar with the story and are open-minded enough to entertain the idea of seeing a different take, then the 2019 version of “Little Women” might prove to be a rather refreshing change of pace.  Here, Gerwig decided to do a couple of things that some may find unexpected: playing with time and comparing the character of Jo her creator. Regarding the issue with time, there are a number of flashbacks and flash-forwards which some may find disconcerting as far as following the main narrative is concerned (add to that all of the characters and their individual story lines and it can really seem convoluted).  The other aspect, overlapping Jo with Louisa May Alcott, actually shows another dimension – for the film, the character and the author.      

Following the screening, there was an interview with the writer/director as well as several of the cast members.  Gerwig said that she had read the book many times as a child, then, after she turned 30, read it once again. That last time, she saw the story very differently from the way she had experienced it in her childhood.  In preparing for the film, Gerwig did a tremendous amount of research on Louisa May Alcott, the author of the novel on which it is based. She discovered that Alcott’s life was very similar to that of Jo in the book in the sense that she never married and never had children.