When I saw the trailers for Greta Gerwig's Little Women this past fall, I thought for sure I was going to hate it. But when it came out, my mom saw it and liked it. Then some friends invited me to see it with them. And now I've seen it not once, but twice, and have a lot of opinions on it. So I'm bringing back this old blog from 2018 to share my thoughts on the movie. Warning: this post contains spoilers, both for the book Little Women and for this movie. If you haven't read the book, please go read it now...you're missing out on a classic!
Note: I have seen three other movie versions of Little Women, starring Katharine Hepburn (1933), June Allyson (1949), and Winona Ryder (1994). A few comparisons to other movies, particularly the 1994 version, will come up in this post.
Flashbacks Everywhere
The biggest thing that sets this version of Little Women apart from other versions is the use of flashbacks throughout the story. The movie starts with Jo in New York, from the second half of the book, and flashes back to scenes from her childhood. These flashbacks continue throughout the whole movie. I found it confusing, even though I know the story of Little Women forwards and backwards. For people who haven't read the book, these flashbacks could make the plot wholly unintelligible. I finally discovered a clear way to tell what was flashback and what was the current time: the flashbacks were filmed in yellow light, whereas the non-flashback scenes were filmed in blue light.
I liked the flashbacks in one way: they made some interesting comparisons between the first half and second half of the book. This especially helped the Amy and Laurie romance plotline (which I'll get to in a bit).
Jo March: Saoirse Ronan
Jo's character seemed fairly true to the book. She was passionate, tomboyish without being over-the-top, and loving towards her family. I liked her attitude in the scenes where she had to talk to the publisher, Mr. Dashwood, about her writing; she wasn't too brazen but she wouldn't back down. There were a couple spots where her character did things Jo wouldn't have done in the book. On Meg's wedding day she pleads with Meg to run away instead of getting married. Jo in the book would never have done that, no matter what her private feelings were about her sisters getting married. Also, late in the movie, when Jo is lonely after Beth's death, she writes a letter to Laurie saying she had made a mistake in refusing him and wants him to come back. Book Jo would never have done that either!
Meg March: Emma Watson
I will confess that I had a really hard time imagining Emma Watson as Meg March, both before and during the movie. I do think that Watson's Meg was sweet, and her character had lots of lines directly out of the book (perhaps more than any other of the sisters). But she seemed awfully bright and bouncy and young to be Meg. The Megs in the other two movies seemed far more mature. I could have more easily seen Emma Watson as Amy!
Beth March: Eliza Scanlen
I really liked this Beth. She was sweet and kind, and her character seemed believably introverted. The movie included lots of little moments from the book that other movies had left out: Beth "feeding" her old doll Joanna at the table, Beth making embroidered slippers as a thank-you for Mr. Laurence and then going to thank him for the piano, and Beth going to the seaside with Jo to try to get well...there are probably others that I've forgotten.
Amy March: Florence Pugh
In this movie, both the older Amy and the younger Amy are played by the same actress, Florence Pugh. The viewer sees her first as older Amy, traveling through Europe with Aunt March. It's a bit of a shock to see the younger Amy (who is supposed to be 13) played by the same actress! They did change her hair (she wore braids to be younger Amy and a bun to be older Amy), but with her low voice and mature face it wasn't convincing that she was the other girls' younger sister. I think her performance as the older Amy was fantastic. Florence Pugh showed that Amy actually cares about Jo's feelings (which is hard to tell in the 1949 and 1994 versions of Little Women) and did a great job of portraying her character after she's grown from a spoiled child into an admirable young woman. But a number of her younger Amy scenes seemed unconvincing to me. Also, she showed so little emotion after burning up Jo's story that I would never have believed she was sorry for it!
Laurie Laurence: Timotheé Chalamet
Laurie has always been my favorite character in Little Women, and I feel strongly about the way he is portrayed. This Laurie seemed a lot younger (and more Dickensian) than I had expected, but my heart warmed to him almost right away. He was lively, mischievous, and passionate, and he delivered Laurie's lines wonderfully. (Also, he was just so adorable!) I liked Christian Bale's portrayal of Laurie in the 1994 version of Little Women, but he always seemed like Bale playing Laurie, not Laurie himself. Timotheé Chalamet was Laurie. That being said, there was one spot where Laurie behaved in a way that was out of character: he showed up drunk to a party at which he was supposed to be Amy's escort. Book Laurie would never behave that way.
Mrs. March ("Marmee"): Laura Dern
I had conflicting feelings about the casting of Laura Dern as Marmee. On the one hand, she was kind and portrayed emotion well, and there were a couple great scenes with her giving advice to Jo. On the other hand, she seemed more like another March sister than their mom. Unlike the staid, calm Marmee of the book, Laura Dern's Marmee could be found baking bread in the middle of the night and running wildly around with her hair down. (I have more to say about the hairstyles later.)
Aunt March: Meryl Streep
My apologies to Meryl Streep fans: I couldn't stand her as Aunt March. All this Aunt March wanted was for the March girls to marry rich men, which she said was the only respectable way for women to get money to live on. In Aunt March's view, marriage was an "economic proposition," a phrase that was repeated throughout the movie a number of times to show that life in the 1800's was unfair for women. The use of Aunt March's character to prove a feminist point wrecked her as a character. Also, Aunt March in this movie was an ogre with no real affection for her nieces. At Meg's wedding she told her she was ruining her life by marrying a poor man.
She offered to take Jo to Europe and then rescinded the invitation
without warning. She told poor 14-year-old Amy that she would have to
marry a rich man and support the family. Aunt March in the book is cranky, but nothing like this!
Professor Friedrich Bhaer: Louis Garrel
This Professor Bhaer seemed like a great match for Jo. He didn't seem incredibly old, his accent was charming, and his kindness was evident. Best of all, he didn't back down when Jo got upset after he told her he didn't like her stories. In the 1994 version of the movie, Professor Bhaer back-pedals and tells Jo she should write what she wants and that his opinion doesn't matter. In this version, Bhaer tells her bluntly that what she's writing is not good. He does this at the risk of their friendship, showing that he is a man who values honesty and integrity above anything else. But after Jo leaves New York without telling why (Beth was ill), Bhaer comes to find her, because even after her harsh words to him he still cares about her.
John Brooke: James Norton
James Norton played John Brooke according to the book. He was a believable tutor for Laurie, a believable suitor for Meg, and a believable soldier and helper for the March family. Although his character wasn't in a lot of scenes, he did a good job with his part!
I can't find any pictures of Mr. Laurence (played by Chris Cooper) or Mr. March (played by Bob Odenkirk). Mr. Laurence had some great scenes with Beth, and Mr. March was great in the couple scenes in which he appeared. I wish we had seen more of both of them.
Relationships
Costumes and Hairstyles
Let me rant for a while: I hated the costumes. The costume designer for this movie was Jacqueline Durran (the same woman who designed the out-of-period costumes for the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice in 2005 and the live-action Beauty and the Beast in 2017). Speaking about Little Women, Durran said: "When I first met with Amy Pascal, the producer, and Greta, I got the feeling that while they wanted it to be accurate to the period, they didn't want something that felt too strictly Victorian in a way that meant you couldn't identify with the characters."
With this rationale, Durran felt free to make all sorts of wild clothing choices that departed from 1860's style and from the book. Jo wore men's pants under her dresses (the pants were obvious when she hitched her long skirt up to her waist to run through a crowd). Laurie's clothes were a mishmash of styles from the very early 1800's to the 1880's. Marmee was dressed like a "Victorian hippie" (in Durran's words), wearing paisley prints they wouldn't have had at the time and eschewing corsets and the Victorian clothing silhouette. The characters wore lots of mismatched prints, both at home and out in public. The whole thing was supposed to show the Marches as rebels against the conventions of the time.
In the book, although the Marches had a lot of strong ideas about things that were going wrong in their society, they didn't dress in a way that would have seemed scandalous to Victorian minds. When Meg and Jo are leaving for the dance near the beginning of the book, it's clear that both girls want their clothes to be proper (even Jo acquiesces when Meg tells her it's improper to dance without gloves). Marmee calls after them to make sure they have clean handkerchiefs. Jo laughs that Marmee would say that if they were running away from an earthquake, and Meg replies, "It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief." Marmee in the book is careful about appearances and propriety. In no place is she shown as a hippie, and in no place is it hinted that the Marches dress in a way that others would consider scandalous. They just aren't rich. I think the directors and costumer of Little Women dressed the characters not as they are portrayed in the book, but as they wanted to imagine them.
My same complaint applies to the hairstyles. In this movie, the March girls (especially Jo and sometimes Meg) run wildly around with their hair down in a way that they never would in the book. It would have been considered extremely improper. None of the Marches' hairstyles look even remotely Civil War-esque, except some of Aunt March's hairstyles and a couple of Amy's later hairstyles. When the girls do wear their hair up in the movie, it's parted on the side, and Meg has long 2010's side bangs. It only takes about two seconds of Google to find that women in the Civil War parted their hair in the middle. Why did the moviemakers choose to ignore this? I have no idea.
Other Notes
I really liked that at the end of the movie, the whole family was at Plumfield to celebrate Marmee's birthday. This happened in the book, but it wasn't in any of the other movies. I loved how it showed all the sisters and in-laws and kids interacting.
The feminist element in the movie was, in my opinion, overdone. The idea that marriage in the 1800's was unfair to women came up over, and over, and over, until I was heartily sick of it. Louisa May Alcott didn't say anything like that in Little Women. On the contrary, she had Marmee (the voice of wisdom in her book) say: "To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman."
Overall, I enjoyed this version of Little Women a lot. There were many great scenes that weren't included in any other movie version, and I really liked a lot of the characters. The things that I didn't like about the movie weren't numerous enough to spoil it for me. I do recommend that anyone who wants to see this movie see another version of Little Women first, because this movie is such an unconventional take on the story. For my part, I would like to see it again (although I may wait until it comes out on DVD.)
If any of you have seen the movie and have thoughts on it, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!
I can't find any pictures of Mr. Laurence (played by Chris Cooper) or Mr. March (played by Bob Odenkirk). Mr. Laurence had some great scenes with Beth, and Mr. March was great in the couple scenes in which he appeared. I wish we had seen more of both of them.
Relationships
One thing I really liked about this movie was the attention to the Laurie/Amy relationship. Instead of the romance between Laurie and Amy coming out of nowhere near the end of the movie, it was built up over a long period of time. It was clear that young Amy had always been fascinated with Laurie, and that the grown-up Amy suited him much better than Jo ever would have.
On the first viewing of the movie, I thought the relationship between Jo and Laurie really needed more airtime. All the essential Jo/Laurie scenes were there, but I wasn't getting the impression that Laurie liked Jo until he proposed to her. The second time I saw the movie I noticed that Laurie looked at Jo a lot in other scenes. His interest in Jo was conveyed not by words (as in the book or the 1949 Little Women) but almost entirely by facial expressions. I would have liked to see Laurie more obviously interested in Jo.
One relationship that could definitely have used some more time was the relationship between Professor Bhaer and Jo. In this movie, he meets her, learns she's a writer, and sees her from afar enjoying the opera. He sends her a set of Shakespeare and asks to read her work. He tells her his feelings about her work, and she leaves angrily. Other movies (especially the Winona Ryder version) make it clear that Jo and the Professor get to know each other over a space of time. This movie leaves no time for them to get to know each other before Jo goes back home. Then Bhaer comes back near the end of the movie ready to propose to Jo. Why? According to this movie, he barely knows her!
Meg and John Brooke were cute together, although their relationship didn't get much screen time either. I liked that the scene where Meg buys the too-expensive dress fabric was included in the movie.
Costumes and Hairstyles
Let me rant for a while: I hated the costumes. The costume designer for this movie was Jacqueline Durran (the same woman who designed the out-of-period costumes for the Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice in 2005 and the live-action Beauty and the Beast in 2017). Speaking about Little Women, Durran said: "When I first met with Amy Pascal, the producer, and Greta, I got the feeling that while they wanted it to be accurate to the period, they didn't want something that felt too strictly Victorian in a way that meant you couldn't identify with the characters."
With this rationale, Durran felt free to make all sorts of wild clothing choices that departed from 1860's style and from the book. Jo wore men's pants under her dresses (the pants were obvious when she hitched her long skirt up to her waist to run through a crowd). Laurie's clothes were a mishmash of styles from the very early 1800's to the 1880's. Marmee was dressed like a "Victorian hippie" (in Durran's words), wearing paisley prints they wouldn't have had at the time and eschewing corsets and the Victorian clothing silhouette. The characters wore lots of mismatched prints, both at home and out in public. The whole thing was supposed to show the Marches as rebels against the conventions of the time.
In the book, although the Marches had a lot of strong ideas about things that were going wrong in their society, they didn't dress in a way that would have seemed scandalous to Victorian minds. When Meg and Jo are leaving for the dance near the beginning of the book, it's clear that both girls want their clothes to be proper (even Jo acquiesces when Meg tells her it's improper to dance without gloves). Marmee calls after them to make sure they have clean handkerchiefs. Jo laughs that Marmee would say that if they were running away from an earthquake, and Meg replies, "It is one of her aristocratic tastes, and quite proper, for a real lady is always known by neat boots, gloves, and handkerchief." Marmee in the book is careful about appearances and propriety. In no place is she shown as a hippie, and in no place is it hinted that the Marches dress in a way that others would consider scandalous. They just aren't rich. I think the directors and costumer of Little Women dressed the characters not as they are portrayed in the book, but as they wanted to imagine them.
My same complaint applies to the hairstyles. In this movie, the March girls (especially Jo and sometimes Meg) run wildly around with their hair down in a way that they never would in the book. It would have been considered extremely improper. None of the Marches' hairstyles look even remotely Civil War-esque, except some of Aunt March's hairstyles and a couple of Amy's later hairstyles. When the girls do wear their hair up in the movie, it's parted on the side, and Meg has long 2010's side bangs. It only takes about two seconds of Google to find that women in the Civil War parted their hair in the middle. Why did the moviemakers choose to ignore this? I have no idea.
Other Notes
I really liked that at the end of the movie, the whole family was at Plumfield to celebrate Marmee's birthday. This happened in the book, but it wasn't in any of the other movies. I loved how it showed all the sisters and in-laws and kids interacting.
The feminist element in the movie was, in my opinion, overdone. The idea that marriage in the 1800's was unfair to women came up over, and over, and over, until I was heartily sick of it. Louisa May Alcott didn't say anything like that in Little Women. On the contrary, she had Marmee (the voice of wisdom in her book) say: "To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman."
Overall, I enjoyed this version of Little Women a lot. There were many great scenes that weren't included in any other movie version, and I really liked a lot of the characters. The things that I didn't like about the movie weren't numerous enough to spoil it for me. I do recommend that anyone who wants to see this movie see another version of Little Women first, because this movie is such an unconventional take on the story. For my part, I would like to see it again (although I may wait until it comes out on DVD.)
If any of you have seen the movie and have thoughts on it, I'd love to hear about them in the comments!
