Louisa May Alcott's beloved novel, Little Women, is more complex and insightful than many folks give it credit for. A basic interpretation of the text is that it's a domestic story of four sisters who grow up during the Civil War and learn moral lessons at the feet of their loving mother, Marmee, and eventually all fall in love and marry (except for poor Beth who is too pure for this world). The novel could easily be read as saccharine, preachy, and anti-feminist (there are also numerous occasions in the novel where a women is lectured to by a man: the sordid stories Jo writes to earn a living are bluntly criticized by Professor Bhaer, and Meg is lectured by Laurie when she becomes too involved in fussy outfits and mindless small talk at Sally's debutante ball). Not exactly a "you go girl" book, right?
Wellllll...
Louisa May Alcott was, for one thing, a very forward-thinking woman for her time. Raised by transcendentalist parents in Concord, Massachusetts, Alcott advocated for the abolition of slavery and for women's suffrage. She never married. She, like her heroine and fictional doppelgänger, Jo March, wrote sordid stories to pay the bills. It is impossible to read Little Women without considering the author's life and moral values and how they play a role in the plot. For one thing, Jo March is a women who is willing to face a life of loneliness and near-poverty to feed her passion for writing and be true to herself. There's even an interpretation--which I made up, but also probably others have figured out as well--that Jo is queer. Her adamance that she'll never marry, and the words she uses when she turn's down Laurie's marriage proposal (I'm paraphrasing, but something to the effect of "I wish I loved you the way you love me") suggests that she can't love men in that way. Of course, we all know she ends up with Bhaer, but there's plenty to suggest that if Alcott had her druthers, she would have let Jo become the "spinster" she was destined to be (perhaps in a "Boston marriage" with another woman?).
Gillian Armstrong's 1994 film adaptation of Little Women remains one of the most beloved films, well, probably ever. It's a movie that made my dad cry, you guys. So one might ask why Greta Gerwig had to go and fix something that ain't broke. Well, because good stories deserve retelling. And good directors and actors can make an old story feel fresh and uncover new feelings toward a story many of us know by heart. After all, Armstrong's version of Little Women was the fifth film adaptation of the story. So people bitching about another remake should really consider: what if the adaptations had stopped before Armstrong's masterpiece?
Gerwig makes a couple big changes to the plot structure. For one, she begins the story not at the beginning ("Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents!") but in the middle, when Jo (Saoirse Ronan, excellent as always) is living in a New York City boarding house and writing. The framing of the story is that Jo is called back to her home in Concord after Beth (Elizabeth Scanlen) takes a turn for the worse). The plot hopscotches back and forth between past and present.
Gerwig makes the controversial decision to keep all the same actors between the "older" scenes and "newer" ones. This is actually a decision that took away from the film. For example, in the "earlier" scenes, Amy is supposed to be 13 years old. Florence Pugh, an amazing talent, plays Amy. Anyone who has seen Pugh act knows that this bitch ain't 13 years old--she has a notably husky voice for one thing. The Armstrong version basically did the same thing, but Armstrong had two different actresses play Amy since her character has the most dramatic jump in age between the older and newer scenes (in the sense that Amy goes from the cusp of pubescence into adulthood, whereas Jo and Meg go from late teens to adulthood). That said, I love Florence Pugh and I thought she was excellent in the role.
I also liked Gerwig's decision to cast Timothee Chalamet and Louis Garrel as Lauie Laurence and Frederich Bhaer, respectively. Chalamet's Laurie is the right age for the character, who is about the same age as Jo. He is playful, goofy, and--often--conceited. Chalamet, who is an unbelievable talent, hits all the right notes to play the "fuckboy next door", as one review put it. Laurie is a very imperfect man. He is rich, yet is annoyed with riches. He is educated, yet chooses to live life adrift. He loves the March girls, yet he mansplains at them quite a bit. But there is no reason for the film to shy away from showing Laurie to be a product of his time and upbringing--it also reveals why he is a better match for Amy, who is very similar to Laurie in her vanity and desire for/understanding of the finer things in life than for Jo, who genuinely doesn't care about those same things.
And I liked Louis Garrel as Bhaer because he's closer in age to Jo than Gabriel Byrne was to Winona Ryder and he plays Bhaer as quiet and notably foreign--a stranger in the strange land of America. He is a good match for Jo, who needs a strong man of few words to absorb her frenetic energy. Jo needs someone willing to not fight her for the spotlight (as Laurie would have done)--and Bhaer, the introverted intellectual, is just the man to let her shine in her quirkiness.
But Gerwig's version even teases with a bit of "did they or didn't they", at the end of movie--lightly suggesting that maybe Jo *didn't* end up with Bhaer, but "wrote" the ending for her character in her novel to appease her publisher (Me? I think they end up together. But I'm a romantic at heart).
As for Jo March--wow, I have rarely felt kinship to a character as I did to her, in this adaptation specifically. Jo's whole deal is that she remains true to herself, her feelings, and her passions even when it seems the world is punishing her for it. I'm a woman who sometimes worries that my choices, my politics, and my opinions have alienated me from whole swathes of people. My refrain in life has been "I want to be loud and opinionated and assertive...and I want everyone to like me". It's a hard lesson to learn that you sometimes can't be liked by all, and also be unapologetically yourself. When Jo has a heart-to-heart with her mother about knowing that women have brains and souls and are meant for more than just love, yet she is lonely and wants to be loved--I felt that in my bones, y'all. I totally understand her. To be a feminist, to be adamant that women are not just playthings and accessories for men, yet to also want romantic love like anyone else, is a real tightrope walk. And I think that's why I root for Jo and Bhaer at the end because I want Jo to have everything she wants: a school, a book, AND a lover. Of all the heroines in all the great works of literature, who is more deserving than the fiery, uncompromising, hair-selling, ink-stained Jo March?
So, I guess what I'm saying is that Little Women (both the book and this movie) has some flaws, but it remains a powerful story of sisterhood, family, community, passion, and virtue--not virtue in the modern, Christian sense, but virtue in the sense of finding the balance of staying true to yourself, while being flexible enough to change, grow, and do right by those you love.
Grade: A
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