Image by Andrys Stienstra from Pixabay For my penultimate blog of this year, I have chosen to revisit the book “1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” by Steven Jay Schneider. Specifically, I want to share my disappointment with Greta Gerwig’s 2019 sophomore directorial effort Little Women.
[NOTE: This blog will contain spoilers for “Little Women.” You have been warned.] The History In 2013, Sony Pictures announced that a new adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel “Little Women” was in development. Initially, Canadian actor and director Sarah Polley (Away from Her, Take This Waltz) was in talks to direct the adaptation before actor Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha, Isle of Dogs) was officially hired in June of 2018 to both write and direct the film. Fresh off of being nominated for a Best Director Oscar for her solo directorial debut Lady Bird, Gerwig was surprisingly not on the studio’s shortlist to oversee the project. However, producer Amy Pascal (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Molly’s Game) liked Gerwig’s pitch for the film being about “the ambition and dreams that you have as a girl” getting “stomped out of you as you grow up.” Gerwig took inspiration from Alcott’s letters and diaries and paintings of “young women” from the 1800s in writing the screenplay for the film and had written multiple drafts before Lady Bird went into production. She also incorporated a nonlinear timeline so as to focus the story on the main characters as adults. At the same time that Sony Pictures announced Gerwig as the writer-director, the lead actors were announced including Meryl Streep, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan, and Timothée Chalamet (the latter two of which had worked on Lady Bird with Gerwig). Only two months later, both Laura Dern and Emma Watson (who replaced Emma Stone due to scheduling conflicts) were announced as well. After two weeks of rehearsals, principal photography began in Boston in October of 2018 and wrapped two months later. Some of the film’s notable locations included Harvard University, Crane Beach, the Fruitlands Museum, and Castle Hill. Gerwig found out she was pregnant during filming, but kept this to herself and managed to screen a rough cut to Sony Pictures in March of 2019 three days before giving birth to her son. After receiving a wide release on Christmas Day of 2019, Little Women went on to gross over 200 million dollars worldwide on a 40-million-dollar budget. Critics near-universally praised the film (notably Gerwig’s writing and direction, and the performances of the main cast) and it was nominated for six Academy Awards (including Best Picture), winning for Best Costume Design. The Cons Initially, I was unsure if I wanted to even blog about this film. The reason being that I don’t have any criticisms with the specific elements of filmmaking at play here. The cast is good to great, the director is talented (especially based on her work on Lady Bird), and the story seems up my alley as a 19th-century period piece about coming of age in a time and place that has no interest in recognizing (let alone celebrating) the passions of young people. Having not read Alcott’s original novel, I knew only the rudimentary basics of the story and the characters involved. Really, I only understood Little Women as a story about four sisters growing up during the Civil War. But after watching Little Women early on in lockdown during the first month or so of the COVID-19 pandemic, I felt a sense of unsatisfaction. Not to the extent that I’d wasted my time, but just that the film had so much potential to be fantastic and it only ended up being “pretty good.” I think my biggest complaint about the narrative overall is how Gerwig never gets me to invest very much in sisters Meg (Emma Watson) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) March. Compared to the creative drive of Jo (Saoirse Ronan) and the desire of Amy (Florence Pugh) to fulfill societal expectations, I just felt that they lacked much of a character arc at all. Which sucked because I grew up loving Watson in the Harry Potter series and was looking forward to falling in love with another young actress like Scanlen in the way I did Dafne Keen in James Mangold’s Logan and Millie Bobby Brown in Netflix’s Stranger Things. Alas, their presence in the film alongside Ronan and Pugh never left me emotionally engaged in their stories at all. Regarding the two lead actresses, I think both Ronan and Pugh pull off their journeys respectably well. But based on their other performances I was looking forward to liking either of them more. For one, Ronan has won me over more than once in films like Brooklyn and Gerwig’s very own Lady Bird and Pugh captivated, hypnotized, and charmed me in Fighting with My Family, Midsommar, and Black Widow, respectively. Ultimately, the biggest issue with Little Women’s central performances is that they are only adequate when they should be awe-inspiring. Which gets to my main critique of this film: I was never fully invested in the story that Alcott wrote. I don’t quite know why, but as far as a coming-of-age tale goes there are so many more that endeared me to the characters and hooked me into the antics they go on and the lessons they learn. In comparison to films like The Breakfast Club, A Bronx Tale and Eighth Grade, the misadventures of Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth lacked the poignancy to justify why they needed a modern adaptation for the big screen in the first place. The Pros As I said earlier, the technical aspects of Little Women are all exceptional. From the casting and production design to the score, the creative team behind the film have clearly put their best foot forward in fulfilling Gerwig’s vision of adapting Alcott’s 19th-century novel for modern viewers. There are certainly some classics—both old and new—that (in my humble opinion) are just poorly made. Unfortunately, a well-crafted film from a technical standpoint does not necessarily make an emotionally engaging film nor a timeless and enduring one. So, what are my final impressions of Little Women? Perhaps it’s because my gender prevents me from fully empathizing with the March sisters, or perhaps Gerwig was a directorial one-hit wonder (we’ll see with her supposed next film Barbie starring Margot Robbie). But as of now, I am by no means compelled to revisit Little Women and do not think it is worth your time unless you are coming into it with a deep-seated sense of nostalgia for the novel from Louisa May Alcott that the film is based on and inspired by. What do you think about Little Women? Do you think I am being too harsh on it? What opinions of mine do you find absolutely ridiculous? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time, this has been… Yours Truly, Amateur Analyst
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Austin McManusI have no academic or professional background in film production or criticism; I simply love watching and talking about movies. Archives
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