Little Women
04/01/20 Filed in: Cinema
According to my wife, Louisa May Alcott's novel Little Women is a book that all young girls read, although perhaps not so much these days as reading has to some extent gone out of fashion. However, the indications are that around 70% of people who have gone to see this film are women, many of whom no doubt read the novel as their younger selves. It is certainly a women's film but one that men should certainly watch since the dismissive attitudes towards women in the late 19th Century are still evident in certain quarters today.
I had seen a TV adaptation previously so the plot was already familiar, but the film employs the now quite common time shifting approach rather than a pure chronological timeline. This adds to the experience as it provides more context but may confuse if you are not already familiar with the story.
The casting is superb. Saoirse Ronan is the fiercely independent 'I'm never going to marry' Jo, Emma Watson plays the elder and more conventional sister Meg, Florence Pugh is, in her view, the 'downtrodden' Amy and Eliza Scanlen is sweet Beth, the youngest and certainly most likeable of the four. In the mansion across the field we have Timothée Chalamet as Laurie, or to give him his proper name Theodore Laurence, an indulged young man who adores Jo and who is accepted into the sister's intimate theatre group that perform Jo's plays in the attic. Laura Dern is mum, while dad is off fighting in the civil war.
Jo wants to write and support herself and the family doing so. Not an easy thing for a woman to do in those times. She goes to New York where she has limited success with short stories but is obliged to tailor these to the publisher's fancies. Professor Friedrich Bhaer is also lodging in the same apartment block and his honest critical opinion of Jo's work doesn't go down well, although we haven't seen the last of him. At this point Jo's literary dreams collapse but when Beth falls ill, and asks Jo to write stories for her, the flame is rekindled.
Amy goes off to Paris with Aunt March (Meryl Streep), much to the chagrin of Jo who had previously been promised the trip. Amy is to develop her painting and her French, and perhaps find a husband. While there she unexpectedly meets Laurie, who at this point had had his proposal of marriage to Jo turned down and is behaving quite badly. But is this because he doesn't want Amy to marry one Fred Vaughn? A marriage that would secure her future, this being the normal life choice for women in those days.
And so we follow their lives, with no surprises for those acquainted with the story but that hardly matters given the quality of the production and the strength of the performances. With a female director, Greta Gerwig, and the strong female cast giving us a memorable female-centric story, what could possibly go wrong when the time comes to consider the merits of this film for industry awards. After all, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% from the critics and 92% from the audience, it must be a sure fire bet. Well, that may be, but as it seems that anecdotally many men are avoiding seeing it, and as it's very much a male dominated cabal that decides these things, it's likely that at the end of the day this film will not receive the credit that it justifiably deserves.
Amy goes off to Paris with Aunt March (Meryl Streep), much to the chagrin of Jo who had previously been promised the trip. Amy is to develop her painting and her French, and perhaps find a husband. While there she unexpectedly meets Laurie, who at this point had had his proposal of marriage to Jo turned down and is behaving quite badly. But is this because he doesn't want Amy to marry one Fred Vaughn? A marriage that would secure her future, this being the normal life choice for women in those days.
And so we follow their lives, with no surprises for those acquainted with the story but that hardly matters given the quality of the production and the strength of the performances. With a female director, Greta Gerwig, and the strong female cast giving us a memorable female-centric story, what could possibly go wrong when the time comes to consider the merits of this film for industry awards. After all, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 95% from the critics and 92% from the audience, it must be a sure fire bet. Well, that may be, but as it seems that anecdotally many men are avoiding seeing it, and as it's very much a male dominated cabal that decides these things, it's likely that at the end of the day this film will not receive the credit that it justifiably deserves.