Month: December 2024

My breakdown of this version, Little Women (2019), is going to be very strange. If the filmmaker decides to take an extremely well-known story and change its ending, chaos can ensue. In this case facts about Louisa May Alcott are incorporated into the climax. I didn’t know any of these details and found the end confusing and infuriating.

It felt Author’s Message to me, and in a way it was. No matter how interesting real life information is, if you go against audience expectations, especially ones so deeply ingrained as they are for this story, you have to be crystalline. LW2019 doesn’t cross that bar.

It makes for a very interesting Enneagram pattern.

ONE

The girls are adults. The beginning of the movie starts near the end of the characters’ arcs. Okay, fresh and interesting. Jo sells a story, Amy is in Paris, Meg spends money recklessly, and Beth plays the piano. Professor Bhaer is introduced; he and Jo see each other at a pub and dance together. 

I don’t understand why this scene exists. (The movie, at two and a half hours, needed trimming.) It’s Four-ish stuff put in the middle of the opening. That’s the danger of leading with your ending, it seems.

Jump to Seven Years Earlier. Meg’s hair is burnt by the curling iron and Jo’s dress is burnt by her carelessness. Classic scene. Laurie comes to the dance and the March family meets their neighbor. Meg twists her ankle, Laurie’s carriage takes them home, and here’s Marmee, Hannah, and the bustle of Orchard House.

You see the problem here, right? This is all Four stuff! Where is our anchor to begin the story? No scene is edited to stand out.

Except one.

Continue reading “LITTLE WOMEN (2019)”

Every filmed version of a beloved story will have some things that are ho-hum and some that are the best of any of the movies. For Little Women (2017), a three-part miniseries, Emily Watson’s Marmee is a triumph. Top actresses are cast as Marmee, so the field is particularly strong. Watson’s work and the script she’s given to deliver are truthful, painful, and joyous. This is a must-watch.

Some of the other choices, however, are not as strong. Let’s look.

ONE

At three hours runtime, LW2017 can add details the others leave out. We get Father March at the war right away. Both parents are much more present throughout, giving a complete family in the storytelling. 

The very first scene has the girls trimming a lock of hair to send to him for Christmas. It’s a very weird sequence, though. Close-ups, corset laces, shadows, scissor blades . . . why shoot this like soft-core thriller content?

TWO

As Marmee returns home she crosses paths in the road with Laurie in the carriage, coming to Grandfather’s house for the first time. Laurie is Trouble, of course. He disrupts the March life in many ways. It’s not the most visually descriptive or inventive Two, though.

THREE

I am utterly and totally making something up here. We see Father, still nursing the sick in the war, cover the body of a man who’s died. Again, this is a strange choice. It establishes Father, the war, and, most pertinent of all, death. We all know what happens later with Beth. Does this moment foreshadow or portend that? I don’t think so. We know nothing about this corpse and have no connection to it.

But here it is, sitting after the Two and before the Four, so it’s what we have to work with.

Continue reading “LITTLE WOMEN (2017)”

(In honor of the month of December, I’ve pulled out a series that was written for my book but didn’t make the cut.)

For me, this version, Little Women (1994), is the gold standard.

ONE

Credits, beautiful music, snow, and a Christmas wreath. Time of year and era are established visually. Jo narrates. As you may know, I’m not generally a fan of narration. It’s more of a “tell” than a “show”. Because this story is a novel, Jo’s narration feels like she’s just reading to us. It’s not the worst use of narration.

Marmee comes home, chilled, and the family gathers to read father’s letter. Throughout, the film is beautifully framed, like a portrait. The arranging of the five women is evocative. You’re watching a time gone by. Perhaps you’re remembering illustrations from books you read as a child. This family is loving and close.

Also, this family is missing its father. The women are surviving and thriving, despite hardship. Whatever guidance a father would provide, whatever comfort or strength, is not weighed.

Continue reading “LITTLE WOMEN (1994)”