Feeling part Sense & Sensibility and part Sex & the City, writer/director Greta Gerwig deliciously tackles (with a modern twist) the Louisa May Alcott classic that made Gerwig want to be a writer.
Every generation needs its dose of Little Women. (My own daughters grew up on the Winona Ryder. Kirsten Dunst and Susan Sarandon version, circa 1994, with a young Christian Bale.) But in this adaptation, the story is told in flashbacks. For those unfamiliar with the plot, the story centers on Concord, Massachusetts, in a modest house of five girls and a lot of hormones. Jo March (Saoirse Ronan), Meg (Emma Watson), Amy (Florence Pugh), Beth (Eliza Scanlen) and their mother Marmee (Laura Dern) try to understand their purpose in life as they come-of-age in the 19th century…in a time when women didn’t have choices.
Each daughter has their own vision of what the future might hold. For Meg, the oldest, it’s falling in love and getting married. For Jo, it’s writing and remaining a liberated woman…making up her own mind about things. For young Beth, it’s fighting off illness despite her musical aspirations; but for sharp-tongued Amy, a painter, she chases cultural dreams in Paris thanks to the generosity of a wealthy Aunt (Meryl Streep) who has a widowed eye on Amy being the family’s future hope. But, it’s Marmee holding the girls’ family values together (which is ironic since Laura Dern has just come off Marriage Story portraying a ruthless divorce attorney ripping families apart.) Marmee keeps the girls in check while their father (Bob Odenkirk) is off in the Civil war.
Mr. Laurence (Chris Cooper) is the surrogate father neighbor, who assists the family with small luxuries. But since money is tight in the March household, the women must rely on marriage. Ah, but marriage…
It’s an economic proposition. Without money you need to marry well. And then become your husband’s property.
There’s lovelorn Laurie (Timothy Chalamet) and a host of other young suitors who come and go from the March home infusing their wishes. Will they all find a ‘happily ever after?’ At one point, Laurie asks Amy, “what women are allowed in the club of geniuses?” Answer: The Brontes? She poses a question to his question.
The Publisher who debates whether to publish Jo’s escapades, educates Jo on the fact that “morals don’t sell, heroes sell,” because they’ve just had a war. He further tells her that her hero – if she’s a woman – “must either be married or dead by the novel’s end.” And there is where Gerwig’s version begins. The movie begs the question how do we stop compromising our values – remain true to ourselves – without losing our identity to men?
Gerwig’s version (five years in the making) reinvents this one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old masterpiece to an astounding production. It’s as touching and delicate as it is rough and raw. She somehow succeeds at even weaving present-day Feminism and even present-day immigration into her plot. It’s a delicious period piece that maintains its authentic glow, with enough gaiety and modern-day wit to feel contemporary. Alexander Desplat elevates any film he caresses with over-the-top richness in his soundtracks, guaranteeing a golden (Oscar) statuette.
Given a woman is often forgotten in Hollywood, given the Scorsese same old-same old albeit brilliant (The Irishman), Greta Gerwig deserves the Academy Award for Best Director.