A ‘Little Women’ Review

Frankly, I’m not sure if I should be the one to be expressing the way Little Women makes me feel. I am a white male who grew up without any other siblings in my home and never had any relationship to the novel or any other adaptations of Little Women. So I suppose you can call this an admission that Little Women isn’t necessarily made for me, yet I found it wonderful, moving, and prescient.

I feel like everyone has a bit of knowledge of Little Women, but if you somehow don’t, Little Women is the story of the March sisters, four creative and precocious girls from Concord, Massachusetts each of whom is intent on making a life of their own. The central story telling device of the movie revolves around Jo (Saoirse Ronan) writing stories about their family during the American Civil War and the ensuing years. The four sisters are Meg (Emma Watson) a gifted actress who desires to be a homemaker, Jo a tomboy and brilliant writer that vows to never get married, Amy (Florence Pugh, with whom I am in love) the radiant beauty of the four sisters that vows to marry rich from a young age, and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) the youngest of the four and a wonderful pianist with a quiet demeanor.

Little Women feels like the perfect step up for director Greta Gerwig. Her directorial debut Lady Bird, a smart and honest view of adolescence, was a huge success with a modest budget released by A24 and produced by Scott Rudin. Little Women feels like Amy Pascal, Columbia Pictures, and Sony gave Gerwig the keys to an intellectual property that has been adapted time and time again over the last 150 years and tells her to go for it. In an interview on The Big Picture podcast, Gerwig goes into detail about the new advantages that come with being trusted with more time and a budget four times larger than your previous film’s. For all the emotions and beautiful moments that help make the story of Little Women resonant with so many, the film making at the heart of this adaptation was one of my biggest takeaways. I was struck by just how visually arresting Little Women is, whether it be the cinematography, costume design, or its vibrant colors. Yorick Le Saux’s (High Life, Personal Shopper) cinematography is living and breathing and speaks to the themes of the film as it progresses. In the first part of the film it is kinetic, constantly moving and acting as a dance partner, sometimes literally, to the girls. As the film takes a turn, it takes a breath, steps back, and becomes more painterly. Greta has mentioned working with legendary costume designer Jacqueline Durran (Anna Karenina, Pride & Prejudice, Beauty and the Beast) and their process in finding and designing period accurate costumes that felt different from the traditional hoop skirts and corsets, and they are truly stunning. Each of the girls is given outfits that match who they are, changing to fit the style of the age and their own progress through the movie.

Gerwig as a writer and director looks on all of the women in this movie with such love and affection. Each woman has a moment where they look like a glowing belle or speak with immense wisdom, kindness, or compassion. The oft maligned Amy March is given moments to show that she is a complex person with dreams of her own, who knows that for almost all women to make a place in the world, they have to be married to a successful man. Even Beth (Eliza Scanlen), the character amongst the main cast with the least to do, is given the space in which she gets to be a point of focus and a source of joy and kindness to those around her. The performances are what drive the film. Greta Gerwig has an obvious connection to Saoirse Ronan, Ronan playing the lead in Lady Bird. They each seem to have this ability to communicate the other’s vision. Saoirse is an absolutely wonderful Jo, coming alive on screen and helping us as the audience see ourselves in the film and to feel her joy and pain. Florence Pugh (with whom I am in love) delivers another incredible performance in 2019 as Amy, a character that is contested by those who have a long relationship to Little Women. Pugh is perfect, displaying a huge range of emotion using just her face, giving us an opportunity to see more depth and complexity in her character and having to ask the question, should we be that upset with Amy? Eliza Scanlen is an actress who I was entirely unfamiliar with before this, but I thought she was quite good and look forward to seeing her down the line. We’ve got to talk about Laura Dern just giving two incredible supporting actress performances this year, between this and Marriage Story. Dern is just killing it as a role player going between a kind and wise mother in Little Women or a cunning and brilliant divorce lawyer in Marriage Story. Timothee Chalamet continues to be one of the most talented young actors working today and I hope he continues to make films with Greta and Saoirse for years and years to come. Also, Chris Cooper in a rare nice guy role! Mr. Laurence is just capital. We love Mr. Laurence. Also, Bob Odenkirk is here, that was kinda tough for me to handle in the midst of this amazing period piece to see comedic genius Bob Odenkirk just performing a wedding ceremony.

There is so much to unpack about Little Women from its themes about family to its understanding of a capitalist society and whether we should make art for the sake of art or to pay the bills. But I don’t have time to discuss that in this review. What I do want to say is that Little Women is wonderful. It is especially moving and visually stunning and I could not recommend it highly enough to everyone, go see it with your family this winter. Or don’t. Watch it alone in a theater and cry like I did.