It’s highly doubtful that anyone who has read Louisa May Alcott’s classic would envy Greta Gerwig’s attempt to retell the story of Little Women. Long, procedural and arguably pretty depressing on the whole, it’s a tale that has been adapted time and time again - usually as a limited series, aired on ABC that only your nan would watch. However, Gerwig’s interpretation of the source material and restructuring of the narrative lifts this adaptation from midday viewing to a memorable theatrical experience.
For the uninitiated, Little Women tells the story of the ‘March’ family, focusing on the 4 daughters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth. It’s a coming-of-age story that both showcases and challenges the notions of what it meant to be an American woman in the late 1800’s. Luckily, the well-worn story has had its key beats cherry-picked to perfection, which gives the film adaption a fair amount of A-grade material. The ‘cherry-picking’, that was rather necessary, in the process of adapting written content to the screen, ultimately allows the audience to fill in the blanks without being left to feel utterly confused.
There was clearly a lot of love put into this project - deft writing, an effective soundtrack and great character performance all combined to create a truly enjoyable film that remains faithful to the source material. Whilst it takes a good chunk of the opening act for the ensemble to inhabit their characters, once they do there are some quality ‘lived-in’ performances. For the most part, the casting for Little Women is bang on.
Some of the stand-out performances worth mentioning include: Saoirse Ronan as Jo (essentially reprising her Ladybird role, but in the 1800’s), up-and-comer Florence Pugh as Amy, and Meryl Streep as the meddling Aunt March and Emma Watson as Meg March. Unfortunately, Bob Odenkirk as the family patriarch is a let-down and, frankly, miscast. Nevertheless, each of the performances are aided by a smart script that provides plenty of material to showcase the individual archetypes that Alcott’s original Little Women represent. These representations are then leveraged, through quips and interactions, to play such outdated notions of womankind and societal customs off, primarily, for laughs - and as a reminder of how far we’ve come.
In fact, really driving the point home (somewhat sanctimoniously) Ronan’s Jo, at one point, emphatically states, “Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts, and they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as beauty, and I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it!’ A great big full stop on the underlying message of the story, right? Well, it is, until it’s followed by, ‘but I’m just so lonely!’ It’s nuances like this where the movie really shines, taking creative licence to add depth to its titular characters and to the story as a whole. The final word? Little Women redeems its source material’s failings; it’s a great big, satisfying film that’s well worth a watch.
In Cinemas Now
Meredith McLean