Back When
Back When
Sisters and Sisters
February 3, 2020
Kiss (and hug and love and learn from) The Girls
Little Women (2019)
There are two problems with the film Little Women. One is that this is movie is, according to the Internet Movie Data Base, at least the 11th big screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel and it appears there is at least one more on the way. Is there not anything else out there to put on screen?
Our second quibble is that, let's face it, men tend to look sorta stupid dressed in Civil War era garb, don't they? Women look good, but guys do not. At least Bob Odenkirk does not, as much as we like Bob Odenkirk.
Now that we have those two tiny gripes out of the way let us say that director and screenwriter Greta Gerwig's film is one of the best of 2019 and, while we cannot fairly compare it with those earlier forms of Little Women because we, honestly, have only seen one other version, we cannot imagine any version of any film being much better than this.
Little Women is the story of the four March sisters - Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth - during the Civil War and the years after as they try to carve out their own lives while maintaining their family bonds. We see these young women as girls and then grown up and back again as Gerwig takes us back and forth with brief passages from the lives of these deep, enchanting characters as they show each other - and the world - who they are while still trying to figure out who they want to be.
Saoirse Ronan (who else?) plays Jo who writes her family's story and her attempt to get that story published is what frames the narrative. Her sisters are played by Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlan and their mother is Laura Dern. Each of them makes us want to know them and then we realize we do know them. We are both sitting with them and watching them on their journey.
And while we joke about the costumes we are utterly sincere when we say the look and feel of this movie draws us in nearly as much as the characters. These girls play the piano. They paint. They write. They cook. They dance. They put on their own plays. They love the outdoors. They can do things. Every young person, perhaps every person of every age, should watch this film if for no other reason than to be reinvigorated by the beauty of a difficult yet precious world in which you have to talk to people, go places, learn things and get your hands dirty. Maybe they weren't the good old days but there was a lot of good in those days.
You know a movie is good when we get this far before mentioning that Meryl Streep is in it. Chris Cooper, Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts and our old buddy Bob Odenkirk, too. We like them all but this movie is of the girls, by the girls but, thankfully, not just for the girls.
This movie is for anyone who has ever reached so far out while trying so hard to hang on. --TK
Monday, February 3, 2020