Little Women (2019): A Great Film That You Probably Would've Watched In English Class

As bizarre as it seems, literally anybody can enjoy the story told here. Even me, a guy who likes adventures in space, knights, and monsters more than anything, liked this film's story.

I'm still working on my backlog from California, and while I was there I was able to catch a screening of the new adaptation of Little Women, and to tell the truth, it's really, really good. I've never read or seen any other adaptations of the work before, but it successfully manages to capture that ethereal quality of films that every kid would watch in school growing up, like the Kennith Branagh Shakespeare films. Beyond that however, it's also simply a well-made and emotional film that invites contemplation and reflection on not just gender roles, but also differing experiences, relationships, and choices. Okay, let's do this.

Since Little Women is a classic (and because I can't recall every minutia of the plot), I'll forego the usual summary, though I'll make note of certain things that stand out for good or bad. Starting with the more confusing parts, there's a definite feeling of convenience as the story approaches its end, and it can be summarized by the character of "The Professor". My sister loves Little Women, and thus she helped me understand how strange it seemed. In the film the professor doesn't even have a name for the vast majority of the film, and his presence is fleeting at best. His presence honestly felt like a hamfisted attempt to ensure that Joe didn't end the film a spinster. So imagine my surprise when he actually had a pretty large presence in the book (reportedly). It was likely a choice in the favor of trimming the film to feature-length, but it came across as strange. With that out of the way, I'll go over some thoughts that struck me throughout the film (in scattered fashion). I think that a large reason that the (to varying degrees) romantic dynamic between the sisters and Laurie loomed so large in the film was most likely a reflection of the gendered expectations of the period. This goes without saying, but there wasn't much opportunity for women to make their own choices, so really romance was the closest thing that the majority of women had a choice in, and it's both heartwarming and heartbreaking in this adaptation. My next point of thought is on the representation of men in the film (particularly expectations of how to conduct oneself in times of trial). Both sexes are entirely equal in terms of audience empathy, and they handle/express their feelings equally. I empathized with Jo as she essentially had a breakdown about her feelings of loneliness, Amy with her intense frustration and jealousy towards her sisters and friends, and so on. However, what struck me the most, and what I found the most heart-wrenching, was Beth's death and funeral, especially the reactions from her father figure(s). Both of her male mentors are seemingly opposites; her father a genial and jolly priest and her elderly neighbor something of a curmudgeon, but with her death the two's characters are unified in their method of grieving. After her burial, with the other members of Beth's family and circle of friends leaving her grave in tears, her father and James Laurence simply stand over her grave and gaze down at it. They don't cry, but there's a feeling of intense, unending, and indescribable pain in their eyes that they cannot ever truly express. This feeling is continued at the wake, where Mr. Laurence refuses politely to enter the family's home, stating that it would never be the same place again and that the memory of Beth is too painful for him to endure being there. After a few scenes (and implied time passing) the two are back to their normal selves, but the scene has haunted me for the past two weeks. It's pretty evident that the film's focus is on women and their struggles (as if the title wasn't a giveaway), but I appreciated that there was also given depth to the often unseen emotional struggles of men in the period as well. It really sucks being unable to express oneself.

If you've never heard of the phenomenon of 'shipping', Jo and Laurie are essentially the best example of this. You want them to end up together, but they just don't in the end.

In terms of general quality, Little Women is pretty up there in production value. There's a very concrete feeling to the March's community, and by the end of the film it's a trivial task to mentally map the clearing where their village/town resides. Sets and costumes are fantastic, feeling incredibly grounded in the setting, like someone did actual research into the setting. The sets also feel like actual houses, not sets (they likely are actual houses), and this only adds to the feeling of groundedness of the film. There are liberal time skips both into the past and back to the present. At first these were somewhat disorienting (though the fact that I don't know the story might also have had something to do with it), but by the end of the film it was very clear-cut what events took place when. If you have a lot of trouble following the timelines in this film, here's a rule of thumb: when everybody seems sober/depressed, odds are this is the 'present' timeline. If people happy and a bit silly, it's the past. Hopefully that helps a bit.

It took a while (meaning the entire film) for me to fully notice, but there's something quite remarkable about the shot compositions throughout the film. They're almost like paintings, it's almost uncanny.

In conclusion, I'd definitely recommend watching Little Women at some point (especially with friends/loved ones/family), preferably when it's nice and chilly out. It's a cozy film that manages to be both sides of the emotional divide at once, being a story filled with emotional sweet-spots and depths of sorrow. I love it. It's perhaps not the most technically or narratively notable film, and apart from the use of time-skips it's not particularly 'important' to watch like other classic films, but it's still very good. It's an achievement in its own right to be able to produce a classic in today's jaded age that transports you to a younger state. I might read the book too at some point after seeing this movie, so there's that little endnote.