I cried for the ENTIRE MOVIE when I wasn’t laughing hysterically at Every Single Florence Pugh Line Reading.
I have heard so many actresses say “your one beauty!” and there is NO COMPARISON. Her little frowns! Her little scrunches! Her beautiful face and eyebrows and genius!!!!
I cried so hard I couldn’t eat my popcorn so I only ate the top inch and there had been no attempt made to circulate the butter so I just had an inch of oil in my stomach and nearly puked in the cab going back to my hotel.
I cried so much that when Mr. March walked in I SCREAM-LAUGH-CRIED “BOB ODENKIRK!!!” in a small indie theater
Aunt March telling Baby Florence she had to save her family! AND SHE WAS CORRECT.
John Brooke has always been a problem, bc WHY Meg? Why did you marry John Brooke? (LOVED how much Greta pulled from Good Wives so we could see the natural consequences of her disastrous match and also him being extremely passive aggressive about the dress) but the minute I saw Sexy Vicar was John Brooke I turned to Danny and was like “The Problem of John Brooke has been solved.” Such a clear-cut case of dickmatization. Which is not to shit on Eric Stoltz, but Sexy Vicar ACTUALLY sold me on John Brooke.
Amy is a Queen. Florence Pugh transformed Amy. Amy is a hero.
I have never cared about Beth before and I care SO MUCH now. And the BEAUTIFUL scenes with Mr. Laurence!!!!!!! Oh my GOD, I cried SO MUCH. I had to lie down.
I loved the timeline. I loved THE DIRECTING. it’s almost like she should have been NOMINATED for an ACADEMY AWARD.
all the mr dashwood scenes? perfect
the sand blowing at the beach
I have never gotten Timmy Chalamet because he looks like a child but I enjoyed him so much more than I expected, especially when he was like “who is this fucking dude?” when Prof. Bhaer (HOT!) showed up at the house.
Also; the way Greta just had Beth walk into the Hummel house and close the door and that’s the entire scene and she is a dead person walking from that moment on was a stark and brutal and Midsommar-esque shot
Jo staring longingly at Beth as she hangs flowers for Meg’s wedding in the past just after we’ve seen present-Beth die is such a gorgeous touch. Jo, I think, is the omniscient narrator throughout, so she has knowledge of what WILL happen in the future.
Can we talk more about the Amy/Laurie dynamic? This is the first version where their pairing make sense to me on a deeper level than "they're both hot people who enjoy the trappings of wealth." I thought this version made clear how lost Laurie feels and how much he likes strong, opinionated, take-charge women -- which is why he initially fell for Jo, while seeing Amy as a frivolous kid. It wasn't till Amy told him to shape up, and then revealed how smart and strong-willed she is in her own way, that he found her romantically attractive. Meanwhile, Amy has always had a bossy streak to her personality, which was thwarted at first by being the youngest of four sisters, and later on because she's trying to land a rich husband so has to act conventionally sweet and docile. But Laurie, unlike the other men in her circle, LIKES it when she's bossy. There's no doubt in my mind that even though Amy prides herself on being very proper and feminine, she's the one who wears the pants in that relationship. (Or, as my mom put it, "Florence Pugh looks like she could take Timothée Chalamet in a fight.")
However, when I explained this interpretation to a friend of mine (the words "power femme Amy and softboy Laurie" might have been involved), he told me that I had "ruined the movie for him" with this "incredibly cynical and un-romantic view of heterosexual relationships." So I'm posting this here in the hopes that someone else might agree with me in thinking that Gerwig/Pugh/Chalamet's take on Amy & Laurie is interesting and satisfying, rather than movie-ruining!
This is also where I think the revised chronology works SO well. Rather than other adaptations where we spend 90 minutes watching Laurie and Jo and then 10 minutes get tossed off at the end on Laurie and Amy, here the plots are interwoven and the Laurie/Amy pairing feels so much more earned
I also think that this is another way in which having Pugh play Amy for the whole movie (as opposed to splitting the role as they did in '94) pays off. It's less about Laurie noticing that Amy is now a beautiful young woman of marriageable age, and more about him noticing that she's a more interesting person than he previously thought.
And I think it's pretty romantic and not cynical to consider that people can complete each other in different ways, especially ways that surprise even themselves.
Your friend is just pissed off at a movie where the male’s thoughts and feelings and gaze weren’t centered. You are right and he is wrong. Amy, struggling today marry rich and not for love in order to save her family, is utterly contemptuous of Laurie just wiling away his privileges. And it’s that that snaps him out of his listless over romanticized view of Jo.
Absolutely agree. Also the movie itself is rather unromantic in its views of heterosexual relationships, so Amy and Laurie finding a dynamic that makes them both happy is a triumph! (They could be like Mr. Brooke and poor Meg!)
The scene where Bhaer comes to visit and Amy elbows him to be quiet! The bit at the end where she hands him the baby before going off to help with the cake! We STAN a power femme and softboy.
Your analysis sounds well-considered and articulate and your friend sounds terrible. I'm sorry you had what must surely have been an exasperating conversation.
Hoooo boy that scene at the end? When Jo is telling her mom how she wants to be an independent woman but is also so terribly lonely? Greta Gerwig, stab me in the heart with your writing utensil of choice.
I thought I had Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom committed to memory (I actually read those many more times than Little Women) but I didn't know she pulled dialogue from that! What scene in RIB does it come from?? Time for a re-read. (Also so many mornings I think about how Rose is drinking coffee as like a 12 year old and Uncle Alec makes her go for a run every morning instead and how I should probably go for runs, but instead I drink coffee. And I was just thinking the other day about how Uncle Alec buys her warm clothes to wear without a corset that she can run and play in while Aunt Clara buys her something fashionable she can barely walk in.)
I was obsessed with Little Women from ages 7-10ish and then I discovered Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom as a pre-teen and Rose in Bloom became my favorite book ever. The scene is language from when Rose returns from abroad and is telling the cousins about her plans for her life now that’s she’s back. I actually didn’t recognize it until LAST NIGHT when I was re-reading Rose in Bloom and was like “they used that in the movie! OMG OMG!” And I lost my shit.
For Christmas in college I asked my family for original editions of Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom and o cherish them so much I can’t even read from them for fear of damaging them.
“You’ll be bored of him in two years and we’ll be interesting ALWAYS” is the way I feel about 90% of my friends’ marriages including my sister’s (hi Matt if you’re reading this)
This was SO REAL even when I like my friends' spouses I'm always going into the wedding feeling like I'm losing them. I know this is cliche to say, but Jo gets me.
This adaptation was the perfect one I have always wanted. My only sister passed away some time ago, also after a long illness. Yet somehow, despite knowing I was going to watch an adaptation of THE novel about a Dead Sister, I did not anticipate being so moved because I never "got" Beth before either. I wept into my Junior Mints. Genius.
I adored Laura Dern in this, too! Marmee gets to be as pissed off as I never knew I wished her to be! And I love that this adaptation puts their father in the canon of Bad Decision Dads of the 19th Century next to Pa Ingalls.
Yes! When Aunt March was excoriates him for going off to teach in the South and leaving his own family destitute and Jo says “he was right” and Aunt March says “it is possible to be both right and foolish” I STAN I STAN I STAN
PA INGALLS!!! Perpetual manic episodes maybe??? I think there is a point for all of us where we think, wait- Ma Ingalls just COPED while Pa Ingalls dragged them ALL OVER CREATION? Literally locking the door on perfectly good houses with glass windows and walking away forever? (ok, that one was because of locusts so fair enough but still!) AND writing Mr March is actually a somewhat kinder thing to do than actually depict Bronson Alcott bc Mr March was off at war for the union, good, while Bronson was around but constantly sacrificing the well being of his family to his Educational Ideals by quitting jobs or getting fired constantly on account of Principles. At least it means his daughters got educations too because of his Ideals, but the women around him had to make up for his impecunious nature.
It's true! Mr. March, so feckless, but still less feckless in the books than IRL. It reminds me of how Uncle Matthew (of Nancy Mitford's masterpieces The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate) was an unholy terror and yet far, far better than Mitford's dad was in real life.
I mean, YES to being dragged all over creation, but I always lowkey thought that was a result of all the environmental factors of being a pioneer/settler/land-stealer. Probably doesn't help that I haven't touched those books since I was about 8-10 and that even after MULTIPLE rereads up until those ages my memory is hazy on the details with exception to a few scenes, lines, and agri/cultural references. Plus, I grew up in the upper midwest in a family that REVERED the stories and LIW and so forth because their experiences in the area were not too far removed from my own family's early ones. I'll check out the book you recommended. Thank you!
Yeah, some of the hardships they suffered were common to settlers of that time and place, but some of them were uniquely horrible because Pa Ingalls had such poor judgment. Prairie Fires explains very well.
There's a really great one called Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser that gets into it. Aside from Pa, I felt it did a really good job of laying out all the environmental, economic, and political forces that affected the lives of the Ingalls/Wilder families over all the generations. Plus how the books themselves actually came to be written.
Anybody who grew up reading Little House books--I LOVED them and as a mom read them to my daughter and I'm trying to read her a bedtime story and my brain is all "HOLY SHIT ALL THE TRAUMA AND POVERTY AND STARVATION OMG OMG OMG!" and then I'd stay up late after kid fell asleep and re-read the books from the perspective of a parent not a child. They are harrowing and those sisters grew up with a LOT of trauma which then plays out in Laura's life. She married a guy like her dad except her dad was not able to borrow money thank the Goddesses. And her one child had what was probably bipolar disorder and was a piece of work. I second the Caroline Fraser book rec. There is some next level mother-daughter upfuckedness between Laura and her daughter. Repressed rage and narcissism make a volatile relationship cocktail.
Makes me want to start a book club where we read and compare both series. I never had a sister so I was fascinated by both the March and the Ingalls sisters.
My mother read them to me and held them up as a moral example: "See, Laura didn't whine at her parents!" "Laura didn't ask her parents for stuff all the time!" I don't know if she hadn't noticed or didn't care that the books are written to gently and persistently hint at political stances she deplores, but it often felt like when my mother was trying to bring me up without replicating the hardships of her own childhood with dysfunctional parents, she held it against me that I wasn't instinctively grateful, or she thought I was bad and weak because I wasn't amenable to her trying to moralize into me the qualities she values in herself that she developed as a kid by necessity, or something. So I have mountains of affection for the books, but the political stuff romanticizing the pioneer folks as self-made, starting from the bottom, etc. makes me angry in a general, culture-wide way, and then they also aggravate my depression and debilitating self-loathing.
Re: Little Women, as I was talking about how surprisingly compelling and believable I had found this Beth, my mother surprised me all over again by saying Beth was the one she'd always wanted to be because she wanted to be beloved for saintlike goodness. It makes sense now that I think about how persistently she's always worked to inculcate morals in me and my sister, I guess thinking that's what kids need most and what she lost the most by missing out on as a kid, but now it helps drive home for me how much of my view of myself is learned from external influences rather than from any effective capacity for self-knowledge. I always found the book a painful read because the girls seemed to be aspiring to levels of goodness that were impossible for me in that the book's big antagonist, drives like anger or desire, were the only feelings I could really recognize in myself, whereas I have to tell myself repeatedly in words that I might have some measure of merit akin to the Marches' also.
Peter Pan Pa Ingalls you mean? The one that kept dragging his family into land that they stole from Native Americans and that was not viable for agriculture? He was a flake. Should have stayed in the Big Woods where at least they didn't starve.
My mother was so frustrated by Pa Ingalls when she read me the books that she could not resist snarking, “Ma had just gotten window panes. Well that means they’re moving again”
LOL. My mom thought the Ingalls family was lovely when she read me the books (in the '60's). Probably because Pa Ingalls didn't beat his children. I didn't pick up on what a flake he was until I was a mom and re-read the books.
I thought it was a spanking? Can't remember. In Farmer Boy the dad beat the boys, and so did the teacher at the school (not Almanzo but some other boys in the school). Mom's family was more like the one in Farmer Boy with the regular beatings.
Also can we talk about the Meg Party Scene? I always felt odd about how that was framed in the book. The way it was written always made me feel that Laurie's condemnation of Meg's dress (and general desire to party down) was full of the weight of Authorial Condemnation and we were supposed to 100 percent agree with Laurie. I liked that here, it makes it seem more like Laurie is jealous other people get to flirt with one of his Sister-Mom-Girlfriends and maybe Meg has a right to be mad at him.
YES! Justice for Meg wearing a PRETTY DRESS and a nickname she later gave her daughter so clearly liked it and also the NERVE of LAURIE being like “you shouldn’t have a glass of wine.”
I'm just reading Little Women part 2 for the first time, and I hadn't realised that at Meg's wedding she makes Laurie promise never to have wine again (he's like, "I really don't drink very much, but sometimes if a pretty girl offers me wine I like to say yes", and she's like "nope, you must never do that again, no wine for you ever". I love to see this as a power revenge move.
Well, and consistency was never Alcott's strong suit, but I did always wonder why it was so Not Okay to go to one measly Boston party in a pretty dress and have one measly glass of champagne, but seemed fine for Amy to spend an entire year doing the same in Paris and London?
Florence Pugh SAVED AMY. Least likable sister became BELOVED to me. There’s only so many times I can see the book burning scene— it’s like Bruce Wayne losing his parents over and over— but I loved Jo being cradled by her sisters after trying to beat the shit out of Amy.
Also, adooooooored Mr. Bhaer. He matched Jo’s temper and with such an earnest frankness and was so gentle and intellectual and I looooved him.
When they get a letter from Mr March and they all go pile onto Marmee to read it and Meg says "Jo always stands in the back so we can't see her cry" !!! WEEPING. And when Laurie first gets to see what their life is like as a big loving family and you can see how much he wants to be a part of all the chatter and the bumping into each other and fighting each other.
YES Florence Pugh was fucking BRILLIANT but just as many props to Greta Gerwig's writing -- she GOT Amy the way no one (certainly including ME) ever has. And I too had never quite tuned into Chalamet, but there has never ever been a better Laurie, ever -- the character must have that tousled, needy, elfin, broken quality or he is NOT LAURIE. Ugh, Christian Bale was like a block of WOOD, a frat bro. BTW The Professor Bhaer problem ALSO solved for all time by Louis Garrel--and not just in the hotness (though: omg the hotness), because Gabriel Byrne too had the hotness, but did not have Bhaer's *heaviness*, his absolutely ponderous earnestness. In fact a young Byrne would probably have been a marvelous Laurie, so it was a total cheat in that 90s version. Here Gerwig made all that heavy, earnest humorlessness into EXACTLY what Jo (possibly) needed--the moment where he says, as if suddenly realizing--"has no one ever taken your writing seriously enough to talk to you about it like this?" just went straight to my heart. No, no one ever had. And if it was hard for Jo to hear, it was also just what she needed to hear. THRILLING, wonderful film.
In the book, Meg comforts Jo when she cries about her disastrous, selfless haircut; in the 1994 adaptation, it's Beth; in the 2019 version, it's Amy. The nuances of this shift inform the characters, with drastically different results. In this essay I will
AND LIKE (so I guess I am going to write more of the essay.) It doesn't tell us anything for Beth to be sympathetic. That is not new information. It doesn't tell us anything for Meg to be maternal. Amy being empathetic is demonstrative of her character maturing a bit, evidence of their reconciliation and bond, and it's still totally believable because she's someone who appreciates physical beauty in a very pretty-teenage-girl way
I loved the timeline. It felt like when you open a present on Christmas and you already know what it might be and somehow you're surprised and delighted and it's just what you always wanted. Florence Pugh was fabulously miscast as a 12 year old but she was so hilarious and perfect that I didn't care that she was clearly 24 the whole time. The composition of Jo sitting down after rejecting Laurie? Chris Cooper sitting on the stairs listening to Beth? The way the whole fam just stares at Jo when Behr leaves? The way the March house was so drab on the outside but on the inside was colorful and joyful? The way Marmee composes herself before entering the room after the Hummels and the way Jo composes herself before entering the room after Teddy/Amy get married? I hope whoever wins best director gives it to Greta instead.
The look between Marmee and Jo when they’re fussing over the newly married Amy and Laurie!
The scene after Beth’a death when Jo has to comfort Marmee - the first time you have to comfort a parent rather than vice versa really does something to you.
God, yes. That earlier scene where she stops and changes her affect before going in to the girls is a sharp comparison to her turning to Jo with tears streaming down her face.
I also came out of it a hardcore Aunt Meryl stan. She was damn right. You cannot waste a tousled haired rich neighbor in love willing to be in love with any of THE FOUR girls in the house. Beth’s dutifulness killing her is so New England and made me so sad. But reading all these comments what I am really seeing are people delighted that a movie catered to THEM and answered THEIR questions and did right to THEM. Which cis white men get all the time, and we are getting this time.
My two favorite parts are when Beth and Amy clink their pipes together and when Timothee Chalamet is standing on a chair for no apparent reason saying “there’s a girl”
Okay, the casting is perfect, and Florence redeems Amy in a way that puts the blood of actual Jesus to shame, BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW GRETA MADE A MOVIE THAT VISUALLY REPRESENTS WHAT WRITING FEELS LIKE?!
The scene where Jo is laying out all the pages of her novel in the attic did me all the way in.
God I wept through the entire thing. You miss out on a bit of the pleasure of "just hanging out with the Marches as they grow up" which you get with the book, the way Gerwig has framed and edited it. But instead, she made a film about the end of childhood and one's yearning for it, and thusly, I wept throughout.
Saoirse Ronan was exquisite obviously but Florence Pugh was a revelation. Amy has been the character no nerdy girl could ever love for SO LONG and the scene in her studio with Laurie alone changed everything.
Exactly. I am....well young me fancied herself to be Jo and it colored the way I see myself even today, so obviously Amy was my NEMESIS and yet Greta managed to make me love her. It's basically a miracle.
As an avowed Jo in childhood it struck me in this version how similar Jo and Amy really are. They take very different paths but they’re both determined to be exceptional and can go on a tear given a reason.
Yes, absolutely! It's such a mature and understanding view of the characters as mirrors of each other. They both see each other as more free than themselves, when their real difference is a willingness to work within the system vs without. They both channel their rage into productivity and perfectionism, but it manifests so differently.
I enjoyed the sly little wink of ambiguity in the ending. Like, are we watching the REAL ending or the happy pat ending that Jo (/LMA) wrote to satisfy her readers? I thought Author Jo's final scenes at the publishing house walked a really interestingly metatextual line.
Also Florence Pugh had a REVELATORY YEAR, didn't she
I love the interview where Greta says she cast Louis Garrel because throughout cinema history men have been putting glasses on hot women and saying they’re ugly so she can do what she wants and honestly I stan. I see enough normal looking people in my daily life. You go head and give me that curly-headed escapism.
I also love that the New Yorker said his Bhaer was like ordering bratwurst and getting coq au vin.
Casting and styling Bhaer as super-hot and Laurie as a skinny man-child (sorry, TC) really underscored the idea that Jo did the right thing by not marrying him.
My household was blessed with a "for your consideration" copy of the script, and those scenes at the end are introduced as "The Present, or Fiction?" And then for the final cut of all the girls playing together in the attic it says "The Past, or maybe Fiction, or maybe Both" and that the girls are all together again, if only in memory, or in the book. It's a BRILLIANT script.
Agree with all of the above. I think this is the best movie of the year, the decade, and possibly ever. As someone for whom the book was a big part of my childhood, I am STUNNED but what Greta Gerwig was able to accomplish with this. She saw what was great about the book and managed to make it better, deeper, more meaningful. They should give her ALL THE AWARDS.
My daughters, who have not read the book, LOVED it. We all cried like babies. I honestly can't believe how good it is.
Side note: Being firmly in middle age now, seeing this film made me I realize that I fell short of my ambition to be Jo March and yet at the same time will never, ever achieve Marmee status. It was a rough evening, emotionally.
I also cried the ENTIRE TIME. Chris Cooper as Mr. Laurence was everything, and every time he and Beth interacted I wept. Florence Pugh was a revelation. JUSTICE FOR MEG MARCH! The adaptation was so lovely and perfect and the music and everything.
I loved how really incompatible Jo and Laurie were in this one because they were way too synced up and hot in 1994 and definitely should have ended up together instead of Christian Bale ditching WiJona for a brand new Amy nobody knows.
In this it was like, well duh, Jo doesn’t want to marry this blousoned tree nymph, she’s gotta write a book.
I was an extra in the train scene (you can’t see me in the film) BUT Louis garrell SMILED AT ME, Emma Watson looked right at me and GG had a bright pink hydro flask ! I have never read the book but I just picked up a copy and I’m so excited to read it
My cousin is the red-headed dancer in the NYC beer hall scene and she said it was such a long day (12 hours for those couple minutes) but so fun. They wanted someone who looked super Irish, but they covered her real red hair with a wig because hers is very short!
Highly recommend the Radio Cherry Bombe interview with Christine Tobin, the food stylist for Little Women!!! She uses ONLY REAL FOOD on ALL her films, which she lovingly prepares in her HOME, and she is a single mother. She talks about the mile-high bowl of peppermint pink ice cream, marmie's birthday cake at the end, all the scones she baked, and so much more, it's a must-listen. https://cherrybombe.com/radio-cherry-bombe/behind-the-scenes-christine-tobin
I cried so embarrassingly and disgustingly. There was so much snot. i used all my tissues. I used all my napkins. I reused the oily popcorn napkins and still I had liquid running down my face, mixing together. My neighbor was polite but my mother, who usually cries with me, was horrified. I just started crying at my desk reading this. Thank you for listening to my horror story; thank you for sharing your feelings.
Prepared Friend Anna strikes again! (Friend Anna was warm and motherly to me on Twitter once, and something in me aches at the idea of seeing this movie with her. My mother considers any Little Women movie a travesty but went with me to humor me. Be assured that any other entertainment you write about, I primarily, very tastefully and decorously, fantasize about seeing with you.)
I wept profusely and silently because my MIL was right next to me and I didn't want to attract any attention. Just sat there, hot tears flowing down my face, my chin, my neck and into my gd bra before just drying on my skin because I didn't have a tissue or napkin on me. I really needed a shower after that!
I’ve seen multiple people complain that it’s a little confusing when Beth is sick and the timelines overlap and it’s so hard not to be like THAT IS ON PURPOSE, YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR IT, YOU HAVE NO APPRECIATION OF ART and instead to nod neutrally and say “yeah, I can see that.”
The overlapping timelines make her death that much more heartbreaking. If a loved one has been very ill, recovers, and relapses, their caretakers relive each of these steps every time. The way it all can mess with a person's memory, a person's hope. Heartbreaking.
Also I mean there are visual cues that are hard to miss, like Jo had just cut her hair when Beth is sick the first time and has long hair when Beth is sick the second time so it’s not actually that hard to follow?
I think male viewers, especially, are notoriously bad at noticing these kinds of visual cues! I remember watching IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE with some guy friends who found the film's hazy sense of time confusing. I had to be like "Look, guys, if Maggie Cheung is wearing a different cheongsam, it means the scene has changed and it's a different day." (also how can you NOT pay close attention to her beautiful cheongsams?)
We had a couple sitting behind us and the husband was SO CONFUSED during the movie- especially when Beth died. He kept asking his wife questions the whole time and when he saw Amy coming home from Paris wearing black he was like "Why is she in black?" and his wife sighed, "Because her sister died." And he replied, "Oh, but that was SO LONG AGO." And the noise the woman behind me made towards her husband will haunt me forever. A sigh of defeat. A sigh of regret. A deep, long sigh.
Ok also a male friend of my mother’s acquaintance (not a romantic friend THANK GOD) saw this movie and condemned Amy as a “gold-digger” and complimented Meg on “marrying for love” and standing by John Brooke and I think he has NO READING COMPREHENSION and would fail the SAT, because the movie is very clear that financial security or insecurity is a huge factor in how hard or enjoyable life is, if you listen to what both Meg and Amy tell you you’ll see that!
Lmao I used the exact word “miserable” in my rebuttal and my mom made me walk it back. SHE HAS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AND STARTS KEEPING A SECOND SET OF BOOKS SO SHE DOESNT HAVE TO ADMIT TO HER HUSBAND SHES OVERSPENDING BUT OK
I have a lot of friends who are full time workers and bring in the income, and the guys don't do much at all. One friend has a husband who is at least a great primary parent--does all the kid stuff including volunteering at school, driving carpool, etc. but he does zero housework or logistics. She does all that.
I wondered about how Amy & Laurie’s story was written. In the book Amy turns down Fred after Laurie has gone away & BEFORE he’s expressed interest in her. In the movie it appears she turns down Fred because she expects Laurie to propose.
Okay obviously we all like to say we're Jo but I have never felt more kinship with a character than when Jo was stuffing bread into her mouth and was just like "I don't know anyone" honestly ICONIC
If you saw Jo in this specific version and every line resonated and you thought omg am I aromantic asexual... yes, you are also aromantic asexual just like this Jo. lol
(I wouldn't say all Jos are aro ace, but this one in particular NAILED it. Exactly. Saying no because you think of a guy as your bro, then regretting it because you're so terribly lonely even though you don't love him but he loves you and it's so nice to BE loved, and then her attitude about writing the ending and understanding how to write a great romance even if it's not your reality, and the way she views marriage subconsciously as a death, the pairing of Meg's wedding with Beth's illness... the end rather than how everyone else views it as a romance or a necessity. And Amy is right, that it was more about economics, but Jo still has hope that she can make a life for herself without it despite knowing it will be a hard road without that in a world not built for girls like her.... The complexity of aromantic asexuality has never been better explained.
I felt like this version really showed how much Marmee and Jo were the same but made different choices. Loved how youthful and fun Marmee was when not burdened down.
Reading through the thread what stands out to me is that the casting was critical and is universally perfect. In a story so familiar that we can all cast it in our heads, Greta hit every nail on the head, especially because she emphasized character in new ways we mere mortals wouldn’t have envisioned.
100% agree, I think of him as cynical and kind of smarmy usually. It felt like he was ironically saying all his lines. But he only stuck out to me as the rest of the cast was so spot on.
My wife has a theory that he was cast because of the other roles we associate him with to give a little whiff of snake oil to the character, as a dig at Bronson Alcott. Has anyone seen GG say anything about his casting?
Apparently the costume designer let Timothee Chalamet piece his own outfits together because she loved his personal style so much which made me love his character even more
There are knitting patterns on Ravelry for the little shawl-things the girls wear across their chests, in case you happen to be a knitter. The patterns were made by the actual person they hired to do the knitwear. I can link the patterns for the curious.
FINALLY I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE! I've been raving about it for weeks and no one else I know has seen it yet. I've seen it twice and I rarely see movies in the theater twice. I also have no real attachment to the book (which I read once and remember almost nothing about) or any previous adaptations and I still think about this movie almost every day.
The first time I saw it, Jo's speech absolutely gutted me. I'm not sure I've ever identified more strongly with a character than in that moment. I did have to laugh a little at the audible gasp of surprise I heard in the theater when Beth dies - apparently this was not as common knowledge as I thought. I also had to laugh at Saoirse Ronan talking about being plain and homely.
"Are you hurt?" "I'M AMY!"
Jo and Laurie's dance. Beth's reaction to the gifted piano. Mr. Lawrence outside the house and Jo being his friend.
This movie is a gift that keeps on giving. I watched Lady Bird in between viewings and it is also wonderful for completely different reasons, so I am now a Greta Gerwig devotee.
Also Jo begging Meg to run away with her was strongly reminiscent of my feelings when my best friend got engaged (married now, they're great, we're great, it's all working out, but there were some Feelings initially).
I took my husband. All he knew about it was that Beth died. He could not tell me for sure what country or time period it was set in. (He loved it, it’s fine now.)
Framing the movie as a love story between Jo and her ambition and creativity made me happier than anything. And I LOVE the narrative trickery that gives us the happy romantic ending but also says that maybe that’s just placating the audience because what truly mattered was watching her book get printed and bound 😭😭
I saw it with my mom and had Emotions about Laura Dern but also Amy. Beth was excellent and made me cry. I got literal chills during the book binding process.
That is a thing taken from real life! Though not accidental as portrayed in the film. LMA's publisher gave it to either his daughter or his niece because he figured he wasn't the intended audience and the rave reviews he got back convinced him to publish it.
Also the book was a huge triumph and I wish they could have included that! Alcott showed up at her publishers' and thought maybe the were going out of business, because there were wagons outside being loaded up with boxes, and more boxes piled out nearby. She went in and her publisher grabbed her by the elbows and cried that he'd never seen anything like it, "All else put aside -- street blocked -- country aroused -- overwhelmed -- paralyzed!" (Thank you to Anne Boyd Rioux's book on Little Women.)
The scenes of Jo finally writing the book were SO great; the shots of that little attic just covered in pages as she tried to get the structure right were REALLY effective.
Also the composition of the shots when Jo and Beth go to the beach while Beth is dying--just beautiful.
As I lifetime devotee of the 1994 Winona Ryder one I went in skeptical but somehow halfway through the movie I just started crying and couldn't stop? I think this one does a really fantastic job with them as adults, but my only quibble is that it was bizarre seeing Florence Pugh playing really young Amy. It kind of took me out of some of her scenes because it was a twenty something acting like a petulant child - but yes, absolutely agree that she is a revelation as adult Amy and actually made me care about adult Amy for the first time, and I am here for hot Professor Bhaer and maybe queer Jo and the emphasis on writing.
I didn’t mind suspending my disbelief that much, because her choices in terms of movement and mannerisms were for the most part fantastic. Her younger Amy reminded me at times of the sketches on Conan in which Amy Poehler played Andy’s little sister, (in the best way). The one section that didn’t work for me was the burning of Jo’s book. Having an actress clearly in her twenties do that — slowly and deliberately — made Amy look like a sociopath instead of an impulsive, envious child. I also bought Kirsten Dunst’s remorse more — she looks devastated and scared when apologizing. If 1994 Kirsten Dunst could have somehow time traveled to last year and played the young Amy and Florence Pugh played the older, together they would be my ideal.
Bless her, her gorgeous husky voice! It was just hilarious the scene of her at school surrounded by actual children looking and sounding like she should be their teacher.
Eh, as a very early developed and kind of gravely voiced former preteen, I didn't even think about it. IMO, she nailed the delivery and mannerisms of young Amy.
I have a deeply complicated emotional relationship with Little Women, because my high school & college job was at Orchard House, Louisa May Alcott's house, so I lived and breathed LW & the Alcott story for years and adored every second of it, so this movie was a tough sell for me and I LOVED IT. (I am also of the 1994 movie generation and still tear up just hearing the soundtrack.)
A few observations of tiny little grace notes that made my heart sing, because they showed so clearly how much time and love Greta Gerwig lavished on the Alcotts themselves:
- when Jo is writing in the attic and shakes her hand out and switches hands - that is from real life, something Louisa taught herself to do so she could keep writing faster; she wrote Little Women (the first half of the story) in three weeks
- the little owl statue that you can see in the background of some of the scenes is directly taken from Louisa's actual room, she loved owls
- if you watch the background closely there are paintings & drawings all over the walls and that is accurate, especially the calla lilies in the background when Beth is sick
- Orchard House itself of course, so much of the look & feel of the house comes through though almost none of the scenes were actually filmed there - the house was recreated (as it was for the 1994 movie) and really gets so much of it right and that's important because those really are the rooms Louisa was imagining when she wrote the book (though most of the childhood events took place in other houses)
- IRL May (who is Amy) was actually on her way to becoming a recognized artist (she exhibited & worked alongside Mary Cassatt, for example) died shortly after childbirth, still relatively young, and Louisa raised her daughter, which, ugh is just heartbreaking and I think so informs the way that the Jo-Amy dynamic can be read. They did fight as children but were quite close as adults and I think a thoughtful interpretation (which is what we get here!) is that they were so much alike and were just complicated, not that they were polar opposites who would never reconcile (which some versions come down too hard on) So I have to think that really getting to know Louisa & May helped get the Amy in this version.
I'm happy to answer any other historical framing questions that people might have!
I'm not quite as good at textiles but most of the general style was pretty good! LW is tough to costume because it's never entirely clear where to put the family, economically: are they mostly genteel but impoverished? are they actually poor? so should they be wearing say 1850s styles out of date, or current styles put together at home? they did a little bit of both in this movie. I'd love to hear a more in-depth critique from someone who is really good at the specific 1860s/1870s lines and fabrics and patterns.
I will say that one thing that did bum me out a tiny bit is that Anna/Meg's wedding dress is still in existence and is pretty and simple and I wish they'd recreated it for the wedding scene. It's gray and plain so I get why they went with the prettier white but still.
Wedding dresses are so hard in movies/tv shows - they have such specific cultural meaning and that changes over time so what WE project isn't necessarily what was intended back in the day. I just googled her dress though and it is nice - I don't think that grey color would have suited Emma Watson at all, but the general vibe of "this is a nice dress that would have also been worn again" could have been done, I think. Though, the frothy white dress does contrast with her much plainer clothes several years into married life.
My biggest objection was her hair being down! Adults didn't wear their hair down back in the day - that I feel was a concession to our modern audience.
I know a little bit about historical fashions because I'm a sewing nerd. A woman of that time and that social class would have had a dress made for her wedding, and it would have been her "best dress" for a long time after her marriage. It would NOT have been white because of the impossibility of keeping a white dress clean and nice for decades.
People of modest means like the Marches would probably have had one nice dress, one everyday dress, and one old worn-out everyday dress that they wore for laundry day or other chores. They used aprons to keep their clothing protected. They would have kept things that they no longer wore or were out of style and re-worked them for other members of the family or for their children. when something got too ratty to hold together, it may have been turned into aprons or quilt squares.
As to her hair being down--it may have been historically correct since having your hair down was a symbol of virginity and innocence, and wedding veils weren't a thing I don't think until later.
white wedding dresses became popular because Queen Victoria was married in a white dress, so the upper classes in England and the US copied her. You would have to have been wealthy though to have a white dress --if you depended on your wedding dress to be your "best dress" a white dress would have been very challenging.
Yes, excellent point about wedding dresses in particular!
On the hair. I actually think a lot of the time they had their hair down they were at home or they were younger, which might have been more Alcott accurate. So for example, you can see this early sketch of May, done when she was I think in her late teens: http://photos.geni.com/47/be/88/a6/41105/quz66pik/47be88a64b791b1_large.jpg
Meg, for example, had her hair up more often, especially after she married, as did Jo in New York. Beth was almost always at home so she didn't really do a lot of things that would have been proper social appearances. Amy's was often in pigtails and then when she was an adult and abroad it was up. So - on balance, yes, I do think they spent too much time with their hair down but I think generally it was to show they were in informal/familial/childhood settings.
ahhhhhh I just got back from the third viewing and it somehow got better?? my new favourite amy thing is her telling beth "DOLLS don't get HUNGRY, beth!!!"
Have you seen him as Andrei in the 2016 War and Peace miniseries??? He does just...so much sexy pining in that one. And sexy smouldering. And sexy staring and fighting Napoleon.
I love how Gerwig gave Bhaer to us both ways. Utilizing flashbacks made him seem much more a part of the story and not hastily dropped in at the end....but she STILL gave us the satisfaction of acknowledging how, yeah, he was totally dropped in at the end because Jo’s publisher made her do a romance.
Stray lines whose delivery brought me joy:
“Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that? It looks like it’s never done a day of work in its life.”
“I said hi to the horses. They seem nice.”
“I would never have sprained my ankle. I have lovely small feet, the best in the family. But I can never go home again, because I am in such trouble.”
“You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.”
NICOLE I WENT WITH FIVE PEOPLE AND NONE HAD READ THE BOOK OR SEEN A PRIOR ADAPTATION. I was robbed of the post movie dinner discussion I deserved. I loved it for all the reasons mentioned. I especially loved Marmee. Now being 58 with adult kids and BEEN THROUGH A FEW THINGS for the first time I connected with her character
Disclaimer: I have been a Little Women stan since before I knew what that meant. Louisa May Alcott (and Bronson) and I share a birthday and my little 7yo heart knew that was because we felt the same. My uncle lived in MA and one of my fondest childhood memories was going to Orchard House and getting to see the desk that LMA wrote Little Women at, and all the paintings and drawings that May did on their walls. My mom hated it b/c I insisted that it was fine to draw on my bedroom walls after that. I had paper dolls of the June Allyson/Elizabeth Taylor movie that I played with for years!
Anyway, all of that is to say that I am both the exact demographic and the worst nightmare of this movie and I LOVED IT. I cried through so much of it. Greta really does understand the themes of the book, that have mostly gotten washed over by the various adaptations. I think it was really wise to play with the chronology, because you've got a 24yo actress playing a 12yo girl and the fact that we meet her as an adult first is all the visual tool we need to make that cognitive leap gently.
I very much like that they also did a very broad swath at the costuming, an AIR of the 1860s/70s rather than actual period-perfect. It served the characters well while again helping us with that cognitive leap. Amy's costuming was especially perfect, and gave so much to the movie. I....have never been much of an Amy fan, and I came out of this movie loving her, so congrats to Florence and Greta, you geniuses. It was perfect to have Jo and Laurie wearing the "same" vest as well, a beautiful little visual clue that Jo doesn't want to marry him, she wants to BE him.
Also, usually Behr can fuck right off but like....................hello.
I'm running off to my therapist now, but I am still processing how Gerwig did Jo dirty by letting her write that letter to Laurie! FFS, she rejected him, she didn't love him, she was relieved that Beth wasn't in love with him, she suggested that Amy would be a good match. It's OVER, shippers.
I liked it bc she still didn’t love him she just was so so lonely and also needed money and her society made male/female adult friendships completely impossible.
You still have that in the book, but it’s Marmee who gently asks whether Jo’s loneliness might lead her into a passionless marriage, and Jo who holds firm about it. There’s no reason to swap that dialogue other than to draw out Laurie / Jo.
Also I ALWAYS love Pickwick Society things because “dressing up in oversized man clothes and putting on shows” is 100% ME and I LOVED the lil clink “cheers” with the pipes that Amy and Beth do.
The highest praise I can give is that I've loved Little Women as a book and through various adaptations for literally as long as I can remember, and in all that time, I've never once cried about Beth's death, until I saw this movie, and SOBBED. (I mean, I cried a lot in general, so I was primed for it, but still)
I have always liked Amy; thank you to Florence and Greta for showing the rest of the world why.
My crush on Saoirse Ronan grows with each passing day; a perfect Jo.
Also, the ENDING! The SUBVERSION! The big romantic scene in the rain (I have always loved the "my hands are empty" / "not empty now" exchange) PLUS the true romance of negotiating for what your work is worth and seeing your book come to be. GRETA! THANK YOU!
Also; the way Greta just had Beth walk into the Hummel house and close the door and that’s the entire scene and she is a dead person walking from that moment on was a stark and brutal and Midsommar-esque shot
WHERE IS HER NOMINATION
Jo staring longingly at Beth as she hangs flowers for Meg’s wedding in the past just after we’ve seen present-Beth die is such a gorgeous touch. Jo, I think, is the omniscient narrator throughout, so she has knowledge of what WILL happen in the future.
John Brooke 100% jacked it to that glove.
My friends and I have a semi-Little Women-based group text called “Jizz Glove Book Club”
The book club of my dreams
100%
Can we talk more about the Amy/Laurie dynamic? This is the first version where their pairing make sense to me on a deeper level than "they're both hot people who enjoy the trappings of wealth." I thought this version made clear how lost Laurie feels and how much he likes strong, opinionated, take-charge women -- which is why he initially fell for Jo, while seeing Amy as a frivolous kid. It wasn't till Amy told him to shape up, and then revealed how smart and strong-willed she is in her own way, that he found her romantically attractive. Meanwhile, Amy has always had a bossy streak to her personality, which was thwarted at first by being the youngest of four sisters, and later on because she's trying to land a rich husband so has to act conventionally sweet and docile. But Laurie, unlike the other men in her circle, LIKES it when she's bossy. There's no doubt in my mind that even though Amy prides herself on being very proper and feminine, she's the one who wears the pants in that relationship. (Or, as my mom put it, "Florence Pugh looks like she could take Timothée Chalamet in a fight.")
However, when I explained this interpretation to a friend of mine (the words "power femme Amy and softboy Laurie" might have been involved), he told me that I had "ruined the movie for him" with this "incredibly cynical and un-romantic view of heterosexual relationships." So I'm posting this here in the hopes that someone else might agree with me in thinking that Gerwig/Pugh/Chalamet's take on Amy & Laurie is interesting and satisfying, rather than movie-ruining!
This is also where I think the revised chronology works SO well. Rather than other adaptations where we spend 90 minutes watching Laurie and Jo and then 10 minutes get tossed off at the end on Laurie and Amy, here the plots are interwoven and the Laurie/Amy pairing feels so much more earned
I also think that this is another way in which having Pugh play Amy for the whole movie (as opposed to splitting the role as they did in '94) pays off. It's less about Laurie noticing that Amy is now a beautiful young woman of marriageable age, and more about him noticing that she's a more interesting person than he previously thought.
THIS
And I think it's pretty romantic and not cynical to consider that people can complete each other in different ways, especially ways that surprise even themselves.
Your friend is just pissed off at a movie where the male’s thoughts and feelings and gaze weren’t centered. You are right and he is wrong. Amy, struggling today marry rich and not for love in order to save her family, is utterly contemptuous of Laurie just wiling away his privileges. And it’s that that snaps him out of his listless over romanticized view of Jo.
One of my FAVORITE lines in the movie is when she yells at Laurie to get the carriage at the end. *chefs kiss*
Absolutely agree. Also the movie itself is rather unromantic in its views of heterosexual relationships, so Amy and Laurie finding a dynamic that makes them both happy is a triumph! (They could be like Mr. Brooke and poor Meg!)
Ahh! It's so good. I love how you get such a sense of their marriage with these little, the "what does Amy call you?" "My Lord" ahh
Timmmmotheee is not my type at all, but he was extremely adorable with that line, looking down with his shy smile and those dimples!
The scene where Bhaer comes to visit and Amy elbows him to be quiet! The bit at the end where she hands him the baby before going off to help with the cake! We STAN a power femme and softboy.
what is more hetero-romantic than power femme and softboy? idgi
This was SPOT ON you’re SO right, the romantic chemistry and the extent to which they’re well-matched was given a lot of ROOM and it really WORKED
Your analysis sounds well-considered and articulate and your friend sounds terrible. I'm sorry you had what must surely have been an exasperating conversation.
Your friend is wrong and you are 100% correct.
I love this insight ! Thanks for putting it so clearly into words !
Hoooo boy that scene at the end? When Jo is telling her mom how she wants to be an independent woman but is also so terribly lonely? Greta Gerwig, stab me in the heart with your writing utensil of choice.
SO LONELY
GG took part of Rose On Bloom (my favorite LMA book) for that scene and I almost DIED of joy.
I thought I had Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom committed to memory (I actually read those many more times than Little Women) but I didn't know she pulled dialogue from that! What scene in RIB does it come from?? Time for a re-read. (Also so many mornings I think about how Rose is drinking coffee as like a 12 year old and Uncle Alec makes her go for a run every morning instead and how I should probably go for runs, but instead I drink coffee. And I was just thinking the other day about how Uncle Alec buys her warm clothes to wear without a corset that she can run and play in while Aunt Clara buys her something fashionable she can barely walk in.)
I was obsessed with Little Women from ages 7-10ish and then I discovered Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom as a pre-teen and Rose in Bloom became my favorite book ever. The scene is language from when Rose returns from abroad and is telling the cousins about her plans for her life now that’s she’s back. I actually didn’t recognize it until LAST NIGHT when I was re-reading Rose in Bloom and was like “they used that in the movie! OMG OMG!” And I lost my shit.
For Christmas in college I asked my family for original editions of Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom and o cherish them so much I can’t even read from them for fear of damaging them.
Eight Cousins is my favorite Alcott book, but now I need to reread Rose in Bloom.
I loved reading that most of that is text straight from the book, but Gerwig added the "but I'm so lonely" (SOB)
Everyone thinks they're Jo, and it's always made me roll my eyes. During that speech, I was just like, "shit, I'm Jo!"
Like, how dare Greta Gerwig be this much in my business?
Oh, that scene HURTS.
“You’ll be bored of him in two years and we’ll be interesting ALWAYS” is the way I feel about 90% of my friends’ marriages including my sister’s (hi Matt if you’re reading this)
This was SO REAL even when I like my friends' spouses I'm always going into the wedding feeling like I'm losing them. I know this is cliche to say, but Jo gets me.
Greta going from Meg’s marriage to Beth’s death, the two times Jo loses a sister.... GENIUS
Related SO hard
I actually sobbed/choked/laughed out loud when she said that (my bf pretended he hadn't heard).
That was the best line in the movie.
This adaptation was the perfect one I have always wanted. My only sister passed away some time ago, also after a long illness. Yet somehow, despite knowing I was going to watch an adaptation of THE novel about a Dead Sister, I did not anticipate being so moved because I never "got" Beth before either. I wept into my Junior Mints. Genius.
I adored Laura Dern in this, too! Marmee gets to be as pissed off as I never knew I wished her to be! And I love that this adaptation puts their father in the canon of Bad Decision Dads of the 19th Century next to Pa Ingalls.
Yes! When Aunt March was excoriates him for going off to teach in the South and leaving his own family destitute and Jo says “he was right” and Aunt March says “it is possible to be both right and foolish” I STAN I STAN I STAN
waaaaaaait I am late to the party, what did Pa Ingalls do??
I could literally write a book.
I am 100% here for this thread turning into a Pa Ingalls takedown in addition to a hymn to Alcott/Gerwig. We contain multitudes.
Please, please do. That way I can read something on my intellectual level and not have to go back and reread all the Little House books.
PA INGALLS!!! Perpetual manic episodes maybe??? I think there is a point for all of us where we think, wait- Ma Ingalls just COPED while Pa Ingalls dragged them ALL OVER CREATION? Literally locking the door on perfectly good houses with glass windows and walking away forever? (ok, that one was because of locusts so fair enough but still!) AND writing Mr March is actually a somewhat kinder thing to do than actually depict Bronson Alcott bc Mr March was off at war for the union, good, while Bronson was around but constantly sacrificing the well being of his family to his Educational Ideals by quitting jobs or getting fired constantly on account of Principles. At least it means his daughters got educations too because of his Ideals, but the women around him had to make up for his impecunious nature.
It's true! Mr. March, so feckless, but still less feckless in the books than IRL. It reminds me of how Uncle Matthew (of Nancy Mitford's masterpieces The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate) was an unholy terror and yet far, far better than Mitford's dad was in real life.
Child Hunting!!! (I did not know that he was even worse than in the books, oh dear)
I mean, YES to being dragged all over creation, but I always lowkey thought that was a result of all the environmental factors of being a pioneer/settler/land-stealer. Probably doesn't help that I haven't touched those books since I was about 8-10 and that even after MULTIPLE rereads up until those ages my memory is hazy on the details with exception to a few scenes, lines, and agri/cultural references. Plus, I grew up in the upper midwest in a family that REVERED the stories and LIW and so forth because their experiences in the area were not too far removed from my own family's early ones. I'll check out the book you recommended. Thank you!
Yeah, some of the hardships they suffered were common to settlers of that time and place, but some of them were uniquely horrible because Pa Ingalls had such poor judgment. Prairie Fires explains very well.
There's a really great one called Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser that gets into it. Aside from Pa, I felt it did a really good job of laying out all the environmental, economic, and political forces that affected the lives of the Ingalls/Wilder families over all the generations. Plus how the books themselves actually came to be written.
Anybody who grew up reading Little House books--I LOVED them and as a mom read them to my daughter and I'm trying to read her a bedtime story and my brain is all "HOLY SHIT ALL THE TRAUMA AND POVERTY AND STARVATION OMG OMG OMG!" and then I'd stay up late after kid fell asleep and re-read the books from the perspective of a parent not a child. They are harrowing and those sisters grew up with a LOT of trauma which then plays out in Laura's life. She married a guy like her dad except her dad was not able to borrow money thank the Goddesses. And her one child had what was probably bipolar disorder and was a piece of work. I second the Caroline Fraser book rec. There is some next level mother-daughter upfuckedness between Laura and her daughter. Repressed rage and narcissism make a volatile relationship cocktail.
Makes me want to start a book club where we read and compare both series. I never had a sister so I was fascinated by both the March and the Ingalls sisters.
My mother read them to me and held them up as a moral example: "See, Laura didn't whine at her parents!" "Laura didn't ask her parents for stuff all the time!" I don't know if she hadn't noticed or didn't care that the books are written to gently and persistently hint at political stances she deplores, but it often felt like when my mother was trying to bring me up without replicating the hardships of her own childhood with dysfunctional parents, she held it against me that I wasn't instinctively grateful, or she thought I was bad and weak because I wasn't amenable to her trying to moralize into me the qualities she values in herself that she developed as a kid by necessity, or something. So I have mountains of affection for the books, but the political stuff romanticizing the pioneer folks as self-made, starting from the bottom, etc. makes me angry in a general, culture-wide way, and then they also aggravate my depression and debilitating self-loathing.
Re: Little Women, as I was talking about how surprisingly compelling and believable I had found this Beth, my mother surprised me all over again by saying Beth was the one she'd always wanted to be because she wanted to be beloved for saintlike goodness. It makes sense now that I think about how persistently she's always worked to inculcate morals in me and my sister, I guess thinking that's what kids need most and what she lost the most by missing out on as a kid, but now it helps drive home for me how much of my view of myself is learned from external influences rather than from any effective capacity for self-knowledge. I always found the book a painful read because the girls seemed to be aspiring to levels of goodness that were impossible for me in that the book's big antagonist, drives like anger or desire, were the only feelings I could really recognize in myself, whereas I have to tell myself repeatedly in words that I might have some measure of merit akin to the Marches' also.
Thank you!
Peter Pan Pa Ingalls you mean? The one that kept dragging his family into land that they stole from Native Americans and that was not viable for agriculture? He was a flake. Should have stayed in the Big Woods where at least they didn't starve.
My mother was so frustrated by Pa Ingalls when she read me the books that she could not resist snarking, “Ma had just gotten window panes. Well that means they’re moving again”
LOL. My mom thought the Ingalls family was lovely when she read me the books (in the '60's). Probably because Pa Ingalls didn't beat his children. I didn't pick up on what a flake he was until I was a mom and re-read the books.
also he literally did beat laura in Little House in the Big Woods!
When she was like FIVE YEARS OLD!
I thought it was a spanking? Can't remember. In Farmer Boy the dad beat the boys, and so did the teacher at the school (not Almanzo but some other boys in the school). Mom's family was more like the one in Farmer Boy with the regular beatings.
Also can we talk about the Meg Party Scene? I always felt odd about how that was framed in the book. The way it was written always made me feel that Laurie's condemnation of Meg's dress (and general desire to party down) was full of the weight of Authorial Condemnation and we were supposed to 100 percent agree with Laurie. I liked that here, it makes it seem more like Laurie is jealous other people get to flirt with one of his Sister-Mom-Girlfriends and maybe Meg has a right to be mad at him.
YES! Justice for Meg wearing a PRETTY DRESS and a nickname she later gave her daughter so clearly liked it and also the NERVE of LAURIE being like “you shouldn’t have a glass of wine.”
I'm just reading Little Women part 2 for the first time, and I hadn't realised that at Meg's wedding she makes Laurie promise never to have wine again (he's like, "I really don't drink very much, but sometimes if a pretty girl offers me wine I like to say yes", and she's like "nope, you must never do that again, no wine for you ever". I love to see this as a power revenge move.
Ugh, fuck Laurie and his “oh I like girls who don’t wear makeup” attitude. Let the girl dress up and enjoy a party FOR ONCE IN HER LIFE.
Well, and consistency was never Alcott's strong suit, but I did always wonder why it was so Not Okay to go to one measly Boston party in a pretty dress and have one measly glass of champagne, but seemed fine for Amy to spend an entire year doing the same in Paris and London?
When you’re the oldest you can’t get away with ANYTHING
actual lol
Lol “sister mom girlfriends” so accurate
I felt SO SAD for her when she says "I'll be good for the rest of my life!". Ugh.
that book is v. moralistic! it's more obvious in jo/bhaer, but it's v. hard on all of the eponymous characters!
Florence Pugh SAVED AMY. Least likable sister became BELOVED to me. There’s only so many times I can see the book burning scene— it’s like Bruce Wayne losing his parents over and over— but I loved Jo being cradled by her sisters after trying to beat the shit out of Amy.
Also, adooooooored Mr. Bhaer. He matched Jo’s temper and with such an earnest frankness and was so gentle and intellectual and I looooved him.
YES, also lollllllll I love that Jo went for her like a wolverine, like might have murdered her
I love how chaotic and physical the girls are. They so often turn into little dolls in rows, but they were so ALIVE in this version.
In the car after seeing it my husband said “I love how they were always piling on top of each other in a heap.”
Because that's how sisters are! It was so real! And perfect! And ALIVE. Gahhhhh I'll never get over it
When they get a letter from Mr March and they all go pile onto Marmee to read it and Meg says "Jo always stands in the back so we can't see her cry" !!! WEEPING. And when Laurie first gets to see what their life is like as a big loving family and you can see how much he wants to be a part of all the chatter and the bumping into each other and fighting each other.
The scene where Jo accidentally burns off a lock of Meg’s hair is pitch perfect.
And timeless. A hilarious horrifying sisterly hair mishap could happen in the 1860s or 1960s or 2060s.
Right? Watching that scene I had a lot of respect for LMA for really getting forever-relevant sister dynamics
It felt to me like watching the new Queer Eye - they're so physical with each other in a way that we're just not used to seeing anymore.
YES Florence Pugh was fucking BRILLIANT but just as many props to Greta Gerwig's writing -- she GOT Amy the way no one (certainly including ME) ever has. And I too had never quite tuned into Chalamet, but there has never ever been a better Laurie, ever -- the character must have that tousled, needy, elfin, broken quality or he is NOT LAURIE. Ugh, Christian Bale was like a block of WOOD, a frat bro. BTW The Professor Bhaer problem ALSO solved for all time by Louis Garrel--and not just in the hotness (though: omg the hotness), because Gabriel Byrne too had the hotness, but did not have Bhaer's *heaviness*, his absolutely ponderous earnestness. In fact a young Byrne would probably have been a marvelous Laurie, so it was a total cheat in that 90s version. Here Gerwig made all that heavy, earnest humorlessness into EXACTLY what Jo (possibly) needed--the moment where he says, as if suddenly realizing--"has no one ever taken your writing seriously enough to talk to you about it like this?" just went straight to my heart. No, no one ever had. And if it was hard for Jo to hear, it was also just what she needed to hear. THRILLING, wonderful film.
Watching this movie, I knew for certain: Greta is a youngest child.
In the book, Meg comforts Jo when she cries about her disastrous, selfless haircut; in the 1994 adaptation, it's Beth; in the 2019 version, it's Amy. The nuances of this shift inform the characters, with drastically different results. In this essay I will
LOVED the scene of Amy comforting Jo and Jo saying she knew Amy would understand. Just beautiful.
EXACTLY! Beth would be sympathetic but Amy would GET IT.
RIGHT. And giving them a genuine connection and seeing that love between them was SO important.
AND LIKE (so I guess I am going to write more of the essay.) It doesn't tell us anything for Beth to be sympathetic. That is not new information. It doesn't tell us anything for Meg to be maternal. Amy being empathetic is demonstrative of her character maturing a bit, evidence of their reconciliation and bond, and it's still totally believable because she's someone who appreciates physical beauty in a very pretty-teenage-girl way
AND it's the special bond that Amy and Jo share - Jo being vulnerable about her vanity - that they don't share with any of the other girls.
This is such a good insight
I loved the timeline. It felt like when you open a present on Christmas and you already know what it might be and somehow you're surprised and delighted and it's just what you always wanted. Florence Pugh was fabulously miscast as a 12 year old but she was so hilarious and perfect that I didn't care that she was clearly 24 the whole time. The composition of Jo sitting down after rejecting Laurie? Chris Cooper sitting on the stairs listening to Beth? The way the whole fam just stares at Jo when Behr leaves? The way the March house was so drab on the outside but on the inside was colorful and joyful? The way Marmee composes herself before entering the room after the Hummels and the way Jo composes herself before entering the room after Teddy/Amy get married? I hope whoever wins best director gives it to Greta instead.
The look between Marmee and Jo when they’re fussing over the newly married Amy and Laurie!
The scene after Beth’a death when Jo has to comfort Marmee - the first time you have to comfort a parent rather than vice versa really does something to you.
Marmee just fucking losing it after all her careful face-fixing and being The Best Person murdered me
God, yes. That earlier scene where she stops and changes her affect before going in to the girls is a sharp comparison to her turning to Jo with tears streaming down her face.
I also came out of it a hardcore Aunt Meryl stan. She was damn right. You cannot waste a tousled haired rich neighbor in love willing to be in love with any of THE FOUR girls in the house. Beth’s dutifulness killing her is so New England and made me so sad. But reading all these comments what I am really seeing are people delighted that a movie catered to THEM and answered THEIR questions and did right to THEM. Which cis white men get all the time, and we are getting this time.
I saw it with my mom, and when Bob Odenkirk came on screen she exclaimed loudly enough for the entire theater to hear, “Dennis Quaid!!!”
LOL
My two favorite parts are when Beth and Amy clink their pipes together and when Timothee Chalamet is standing on a chair for no apparent reason saying “there’s a girl”
I LOVED the
Pipe clinking
Okay, the casting is perfect, and Florence redeems Amy in a way that puts the blood of actual Jesus to shame, BUT CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW GRETA MADE A MOVIE THAT VISUALLY REPRESENTS WHAT WRITING FEELS LIKE?!
The scene where Jo is laying out all the pages of her novel in the attic did me all the way in.
Yes!!! The PROCESS. I love process in movies!!!
I love that the rearranging of the pages is like how the movie narrative develops!
God I wept through the entire thing. You miss out on a bit of the pleasure of "just hanging out with the Marches as they grow up" which you get with the book, the way Gerwig has framed and edited it. But instead, she made a film about the end of childhood and one's yearning for it, and thusly, I wept throughout.
Poor lonely, exhausted Meg. Comparing her current self with her vibrant childhood self was so painful.
Saoirse Ronan was exquisite obviously but Florence Pugh was a revelation. Amy has been the character no nerdy girl could ever love for SO LONG and the scene in her studio with Laurie alone changed everything.
Exactly. I am....well young me fancied herself to be Jo and it colored the way I see myself even today, so obviously Amy was my NEMESIS and yet Greta managed to make me love her. It's basically a miracle.
As an avowed Jo in childhood it struck me in this version how similar Jo and Amy really are. They take very different paths but they’re both determined to be exceptional and can go on a tear given a reason.
And the dialogue Amy gets in this version about always being second to Jo! I was just floored, to have that part of her character opened up to me
Contrasting Amy talking about how she’s always second to Jo and Jo talking about how Amy always gets out of the hard parts of life was a gut punch.
Yes, absolutely! It's such a mature and understanding view of the characters as mirrors of each other. They both see each other as more free than themselves, when their real difference is a willingness to work within the system vs without. They both channel their rage into productivity and perfectionism, but it manifests so differently.
I see you but I’m a nerdy girl who ALWAYS loved Amy! She grows! (Also Jo’s Boys helps a lot W her)
I enjoyed the sly little wink of ambiguity in the ending. Like, are we watching the REAL ending or the happy pat ending that Jo (/LMA) wrote to satisfy her readers? I thought Author Jo's final scenes at the publishing house walked a really interestingly metatextual line.
Also Florence Pugh had a REVELATORY YEAR, didn't she
I LOVE THE AMBIGUITY but also I wanted to sit on that gentleman’s face very badly
I love the interview where Greta says she cast Louis Garrel because throughout cinema history men have been putting glasses on hot women and saying they’re ugly so she can do what she wants and honestly I stan. I see enough normal looking people in my daily life. You go head and give me that curly-headed escapism.
I also love that the New Yorker said his Bhaer was like ordering bratwurst and getting coq au vin.
Casting and styling Bhaer as super-hot and Laurie as a skinny man-child (sorry, TC) really underscored the idea that Jo did the right thing by not marrying him.
I immediately made him Alsatian in my head to line right up with this casting choice.
My household was blessed with a "for your consideration" copy of the script, and those scenes at the end are introduced as "The Present, or Fiction?" And then for the final cut of all the girls playing together in the attic it says "The Past, or maybe Fiction, or maybe Both" and that the girls are all together again, if only in memory, or in the book. It's a BRILLIANT script.
BRILLIANT
There was a whole great essay about this completely brilliant move! https://film.avclub.com/let-s-talk-about-the-ending-of-greta-gerwig-s-little-wo-1840449374
Agree with all of the above. I think this is the best movie of the year, the decade, and possibly ever. As someone for whom the book was a big part of my childhood, I am STUNNED but what Greta Gerwig was able to accomplish with this. She saw what was great about the book and managed to make it better, deeper, more meaningful. They should give her ALL THE AWARDS.
My daughters, who have not read the book, LOVED it. We all cried like babies. I honestly can't believe how good it is.
Side note: Being firmly in middle age now, seeing this film made me I realize that I fell short of my ambition to be Jo March and yet at the same time will never, ever achieve Marmee status. It was a rough evening, emotionally.
P.S. I told my daughters that in the book Prof. Baehr is an older gentleman and they said "That wouldn't work today, Mom." Good point.
I also cried the ENTIRE TIME. Chris Cooper as Mr. Laurence was everything, and every time he and Beth interacted I wept. Florence Pugh was a revelation. JUSTICE FOR MEG MARCH! The adaptation was so lovely and perfect and the music and everything.
Right? Chris Cooper is everything.
THE SCENE WHERE HE SAT ON THE STAIRS AND LISTENED TO HER PLAY AND JUST QUIETLY WEPT, IT'S FINE I AM FINE!!!!!
that’s when my crying became audible
Rob Delaney tweeted Cooper's performance was the perfect representation of parental grief.
WELL NOW I'M CRYING AGAIN! oh my god it's so painfully wonderful
Well jeez he should know. That's amazing.
Definitely not currently crying thinking about it nope!
wept SO hard
I was so happy when I saw that he was in this movie. I will watch him in anything.
I loved how really incompatible Jo and Laurie were in this one because they were way too synced up and hot in 1994 and definitely should have ended up together instead of Christian Bale ditching WiJona for a brand new Amy nobody knows.
In this it was like, well duh, Jo doesn’t want to marry this blousoned tree nymph, she’s gotta write a book.
"WiJona" just made me laugh like a seal
“Blossomed tree nymph”!!! 😂😂😂
*blousoned
I was an extra in the train scene (you can’t see me in the film) BUT Louis garrell SMILED AT ME, Emma Watson looked right at me and GG had a bright pink hydro flask ! I have never read the book but I just picked up a copy and I’m so excited to read it
you are a CELEBRITY
My cousin is the red-headed dancer in the NYC beer hall scene and she said it was such a long day (12 hours for those couple minutes) but so fun. They wanted someone who looked super Irish, but they covered her real red hair with a wig because hers is very short!
Highly recommend the Radio Cherry Bombe interview with Christine Tobin, the food stylist for Little Women!!! She uses ONLY REAL FOOD on ALL her films, which she lovingly prepares in her HOME, and she is a single mother. She talks about the mile-high bowl of peppermint pink ice cream, marmie's birthday cake at the end, all the scones she baked, and so much more, it's a must-listen. https://cherrybombe.com/radio-cherry-bombe/behind-the-scenes-christine-tobin
and in this version they actually get the two Christmas breakfasts!! What a feast!
(excuse my typo, it's Marmee, my friend's mom goes by Marmie to us, pardon me!)
I cried so embarrassingly and disgustingly. There was so much snot. i used all my tissues. I used all my napkins. I reused the oily popcorn napkins and still I had liquid running down my face, mixing together. My neighbor was polite but my mother, who usually cries with me, was horrified. I just started crying at my desk reading this. Thank you for listening to my horror story; thank you for sharing your feelings.
My friend Anna brought two packs of Kleenex, one for each of us, so I was spared the popcorn oil scratchy napkins
Prepared Friend Anna strikes again! (Friend Anna was warm and motherly to me on Twitter once, and something in me aches at the idea of seeing this movie with her. My mother considers any Little Women movie a travesty but went with me to humor me. Be assured that any other entertainment you write about, I primarily, very tastefully and decorously, fantasize about seeing with you.)
I wept profusely and silently because my MIL was right next to me and I didn't want to attract any attention. Just sat there, hot tears flowing down my face, my chin, my neck and into my gd bra before just drying on my skin because I didn't have a tissue or napkin on me. I really needed a shower after that!
this was also my level of crying but I had no shame, I WAS MOVED!
I’ve seen multiple people complain that it’s a little confusing when Beth is sick and the timelines overlap and it’s so hard not to be like THAT IS ON PURPOSE, YOU HAVE TO WORK FOR IT, YOU HAVE NO APPRECIATION OF ART and instead to nod neutrally and say “yeah, I can see that.”
The overlapping timelines make her death that much more heartbreaking. If a loved one has been very ill, recovers, and relapses, their caretakers relive each of these steps every time. The way it all can mess with a person's memory, a person's hope. Heartbreaking.
I shouldn't presume that happens to everyone, but that is how the scene fit on me.
Someone in the theater audibly said “but I thought she got better!” when the death scene happened.
Also I mean there are visual cues that are hard to miss, like Jo had just cut her hair when Beth is sick the first time and has long hair when Beth is sick the second time so it’s not actually that hard to follow?
The hair is like providing a literal placard with “1871” on it.
I think male viewers, especially, are notoriously bad at noticing these kinds of visual cues! I remember watching IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE with some guy friends who found the film's hazy sense of time confusing. I had to be like "Look, guys, if Maggie Cheung is wearing a different cheongsam, it means the scene has changed and it's a different day." (also how can you NOT pay close attention to her beautiful cheongsams?)
We had a couple sitting behind us and the husband was SO CONFUSED during the movie- especially when Beth died. He kept asking his wife questions the whole time and when he saw Amy coming home from Paris wearing black he was like "Why is she in black?" and his wife sighed, "Because her sister died." And he replied, "Oh, but that was SO LONG AGO." And the noise the woman behind me made towards her husband will haunt me forever. A sigh of defeat. A sigh of regret. A deep, long sigh.
That poor, long-suffering woman.
I considered the possibility of buying her another ticket to watch on her own.
No it wasn't, my man. They literally say, "Have we told Amy how sick Beth is?" "No, we don't want her to rush home from Paris early."
Ok also a male friend of my mother’s acquaintance (not a romantic friend THANK GOD) saw this movie and condemned Amy as a “gold-digger” and complimented Meg on “marrying for love” and standing by John Brooke and I think he has NO READING COMPREHENSION and would fail the SAT, because the movie is very clear that financial security or insecurity is a huge factor in how hard or enjoyable life is, if you listen to what both Meg and Amy tell you you’ll see that!
Meg married for love without considering her finances and is miserable. The movie is PRETTY clear that marriage is a financial consideration!
Lmao I used the exact word “miserable” in my rebuttal and my mom made me walk it back. SHE HAS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN AND STARTS KEEPING A SECOND SET OF BOOKS SO SHE DOESNT HAVE TO ADMIT TO HER HUSBAND SHES OVERSPENDING BUT OK
I have a lot of friends who are full time workers and bring in the income, and the guys don't do much at all. One friend has a husband who is at least a great primary parent--does all the kid stuff including volunteering at school, driving carpool, etc. but he does zero housework or logistics. She does all that.
Hate that sooo much and it’s why I’m single!! I would just seethe with resentment at a partner not sharing the load.
I wondered about how Amy & Laurie’s story was written. In the book Amy turns down Fred after Laurie has gone away & BEFORE he’s expressed interest in her. In the movie it appears she turns down Fred because she expects Laurie to propose.
Is he 10? Because I think I thought that when I was 10 and deep in the throes of true love is haaaaaard nonsense.
Okay obviously we all like to say we're Jo but I have never felt more kinship with a character than when Jo was stuffing bread into her mouth and was just like "I don't know anyone" honestly ICONIC
If you saw Jo in this specific version and every line resonated and you thought omg am I aromantic asexual... yes, you are also aromantic asexual just like this Jo. lol
(I wouldn't say all Jos are aro ace, but this one in particular NAILED it. Exactly. Saying no because you think of a guy as your bro, then regretting it because you're so terribly lonely even though you don't love him but he loves you and it's so nice to BE loved, and then her attitude about writing the ending and understanding how to write a great romance even if it's not your reality, and the way she views marriage subconsciously as a death, the pairing of Meg's wedding with Beth's illness... the end rather than how everyone else views it as a romance or a necessity. And Amy is right, that it was more about economics, but Jo still has hope that she can make a life for herself without it despite knowing it will be a hard road without that in a world not built for girls like her.... The complexity of aromantic asexuality has never been better explained.
Laura Dern SHONE with the parts she was given. Pretty thankless role being Marmee, but dang did her anger talk with Jo get me.
I felt like this version really showed how much Marmee and Jo were the same but made different choices. Loved how youthful and fun Marmee was when not burdened down.
Reading through the thread what stands out to me is that the casting was critical and is universally perfect. In a story so familiar that we can all cast it in our heads, Greta hit every nail on the head, especially because she emphasized character in new ways we mere mortals wouldn’t have envisioned.
The ONLY exception to this was I could not get over Bob Odenkirk. In every scene, I was just never not aware that it was Bob Odenkirk.
100% agree, I think of him as cynical and kind of smarmy usually. It felt like he was ironically saying all his lines. But he only stuck out to me as the rest of the cast was so spot on.
Hard agree. Luckily Pa March is barely in it.
I honestly loved it because on the one hand Goofy Bob Odenkirk Dad is kind of like my actual dad’s vibe? But as a Mr. March I couldn’t buy it.
My wife has a theory that he was cast because of the other roles we associate him with to give a little whiff of snake oil to the character, as a dig at Bronson Alcott. Has anyone seen GG say anything about his casting?
Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah, he just reads as way too modern for me.
I liked Dylan Baker as Mr March but I’m a long term Dylan Baker fan
Agree. Except for one quibble - Jo should definitely be brunette :)
Yes yes to all of this, but also the CLOTHES were amazing?!?
I would die for that cape-jacket thing that Amy wears when she's leaving the art studio in Paris.
I literally whispered "I would kill you right now for her whole outfit" to my friend in the theatre haha
YES!
Apparently the costume designer let Timothee Chalamet piece his own outfits together because she loved his personal style so much which made me love his character even more
There are knitting patterns on Ravelry for the little shawl-things the girls wear across their chests, in case you happen to be a knitter. The patterns were made by the actual person they hired to do the knitwear. I can link the patterns for the curious.
literally picked up my dormant knitting hobby again because of this movie!
Yes please! Or just be my ravelry friend: KarenMHC
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/jos-shawl :)
Yes, please please link!
Definitely! So much beautiful knitting!!
Loved reading interviews with the costume designer, Jacqueline Durranespecially this first article in the New Yorker:
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/on-and-off-the-avenue/how-jacqueline-durran-the-little-women-costume-designer-remixes-styles-and-eras/amp#aoh=15796393587333&_ct=1579639485549&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s
https://ew.com/movies/little-women-costumes/
https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/little-women-costumes-2019-interview/?amp#aoh=15796393587333&_ct=1579639366372&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s
FINALLY I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE! I've been raving about it for weeks and no one else I know has seen it yet. I've seen it twice and I rarely see movies in the theater twice. I also have no real attachment to the book (which I read once and remember almost nothing about) or any previous adaptations and I still think about this movie almost every day.
The first time I saw it, Jo's speech absolutely gutted me. I'm not sure I've ever identified more strongly with a character than in that moment. I did have to laugh a little at the audible gasp of surprise I heard in the theater when Beth dies - apparently this was not as common knowledge as I thought. I also had to laugh at Saoirse Ronan talking about being plain and homely.
"Are you hurt?" "I'M AMY!"
Jo and Laurie's dance. Beth's reaction to the gifted piano. Mr. Lawrence outside the house and Jo being his friend.
This movie is a gift that keeps on giving. I watched Lady Bird in between viewings and it is also wonderful for completely different reasons, so I am now a Greta Gerwig devotee.
The Jo and Laurie dance scene cured my seasonal depression
Also Jo begging Meg to run away with her was strongly reminiscent of my feelings when my best friend got engaged (married now, they're great, we're great, it's all working out, but there were some Feelings initially).
I took my husband. All he knew about it was that Beth died. He could not tell me for sure what country or time period it was set in. (He loved it, it’s fine now.)
My husband tried to go to the bathroom right before Amy burned Jo’s manuscript and I was like, “No. You need to stay for this.”
See, I thought everyone had at least this level of knowledge until I heard *gasp* "Oh no!" from the back corner of the theater.
Framing the movie as a love story between Jo and her ambition and creativity made me happier than anything. And I LOVE the narrative trickery that gives us the happy romantic ending but also says that maybe that’s just placating the audience because what truly mattered was watching her book get printed and bound 😭😭
I saw it with my mom and had Emotions about Laura Dern but also Amy. Beth was excellent and made me cry. I got literal chills during the book binding process.
YES to that book binding process!
I could barely see at that point but it elevated my crying to an even higher level
She looked like she was watching a new baby through the window at a hospital and I loved it.
That bookbinding scene was literally orgasmic for me
Sobbed sobbed sobbed at the very end.
omg how fortuitous i just posted this https://the-niche.blog/2020/01/20/amy-discovers-jos-ao3-handle-and-drags-her-in-the-march-family-groupchat/
Laurie and Jo are T4T friendsssss
Just wanted to say I'm laughing all the way out loud at Beth's discovery about the 538 podcasters and no one else caring.
This is the best thing ever, I am dead now. Also love that of course Laurie is part of the March siblings group chat.
AHHH this is so good
Also mad props to the publisher’s daughters
That is a thing taken from real life! Though not accidental as portrayed in the film. LMA's publisher gave it to either his daughter or his niece because he figured he wasn't the intended audience and the rave reviews he got back convinced him to publish it.
Amazing! Thank you!
Also the book was a huge triumph and I wish they could have included that! Alcott showed up at her publishers' and thought maybe the were going out of business, because there were wagons outside being loaded up with boxes, and more boxes piled out nearby. She went in and her publisher grabbed her by the elbows and cried that he'd never seen anything like it, "All else put aside -- street blocked -- country aroused -- overwhelmed -- paralyzed!" (Thank you to Anne Boyd Rioux's book on Little Women.)
YES! It would have been hilarious too to see Saoirse Ronan's Jo react to overwhelming fame + groupies constantly ringing the bell.
Maybe Gerwig will direct Jo's Boys someday so we can see that.
OMG
The scenes of Jo finally writing the book were SO great; the shots of that little attic just covered in pages as she tried to get the structure right were REALLY effective.
Also the composition of the shots when Jo and Beth go to the beach while Beth is dying--just beautiful.
I started crying the moment we saw the kite on the beach because I could immediately hear, “Some Things Are Meant to Be,” in my head!
Just THINKING of that song is making me tear up! Sister relationships/sister loss is like the shortcut to getting me to cry
As I lifetime devotee of the 1994 Winona Ryder one I went in skeptical but somehow halfway through the movie I just started crying and couldn't stop? I think this one does a really fantastic job with them as adults, but my only quibble is that it was bizarre seeing Florence Pugh playing really young Amy. It kind of took me out of some of her scenes because it was a twenty something acting like a petulant child - but yes, absolutely agree that she is a revelation as adult Amy and actually made me care about adult Amy for the first time, and I am here for hot Professor Bhaer and maybe queer Jo and the emphasis on writing.
I didn’t mind suspending my disbelief that much, because her choices in terms of movement and mannerisms were for the most part fantastic. Her younger Amy reminded me at times of the sketches on Conan in which Amy Poehler played Andy’s little sister, (in the best way). The one section that didn’t work for me was the burning of Jo’s book. Having an actress clearly in her twenties do that — slowly and deliberately — made Amy look like a sociopath instead of an impulsive, envious child. I also bought Kirsten Dunst’s remorse more — she looks devastated and scared when apologizing. If 1994 Kirsten Dunst could have somehow time traveled to last year and played the young Amy and Florence Pugh played the older, together they would be my ideal.
My bf hypothesizes that the creatives figured they’d never find a kid as amazing as Kirsten in the role so went with the single casting
Yes! Florence Pugh's incredible contralto voice was... not a great fit for a twelve-year-old child.
Bless her, her gorgeous husky voice! It was just hilarious the scene of her at school surrounded by actual children looking and sounding like she should be their teacher.
Eh, as a very early developed and kind of gravely voiced former preteen, I didn't even think about it. IMO, she nailed the delivery and mannerisms of young Amy.
Agree this didn’t work great. She was ideal as adult Amy but she’s too mature to play a pubescent kid.
I have a deeply complicated emotional relationship with Little Women, because my high school & college job was at Orchard House, Louisa May Alcott's house, so I lived and breathed LW & the Alcott story for years and adored every second of it, so this movie was a tough sell for me and I LOVED IT. (I am also of the 1994 movie generation and still tear up just hearing the soundtrack.)
A few observations of tiny little grace notes that made my heart sing, because they showed so clearly how much time and love Greta Gerwig lavished on the Alcotts themselves:
- when Jo is writing in the attic and shakes her hand out and switches hands - that is from real life, something Louisa taught herself to do so she could keep writing faster; she wrote Little Women (the first half of the story) in three weeks
- the little owl statue that you can see in the background of some of the scenes is directly taken from Louisa's actual room, she loved owls
- if you watch the background closely there are paintings & drawings all over the walls and that is accurate, especially the calla lilies in the background when Beth is sick
- Orchard House itself of course, so much of the look & feel of the house comes through though almost none of the scenes were actually filmed there - the house was recreated (as it was for the 1994 movie) and really gets so much of it right and that's important because those really are the rooms Louisa was imagining when she wrote the book (though most of the childhood events took place in other houses)
- IRL May (who is Amy) was actually on her way to becoming a recognized artist (she exhibited & worked alongside Mary Cassatt, for example) died shortly after childbirth, still relatively young, and Louisa raised her daughter, which, ugh is just heartbreaking and I think so informs the way that the Jo-Amy dynamic can be read. They did fight as children but were quite close as adults and I think a thoughtful interpretation (which is what we get here!) is that they were so much alike and were just complicated, not that they were polar opposites who would never reconcile (which some versions come down too hard on) So I have to think that really getting to know Louisa & May helped get the Amy in this version.
I'm happy to answer any other historical framing questions that people might have!
Oh my goodness THANK YOU - I love perspectives on historical accuracy.
What did you think of the costumes?
I'm not quite as good at textiles but most of the general style was pretty good! LW is tough to costume because it's never entirely clear where to put the family, economically: are they mostly genteel but impoverished? are they actually poor? so should they be wearing say 1850s styles out of date, or current styles put together at home? they did a little bit of both in this movie. I'd love to hear a more in-depth critique from someone who is really good at the specific 1860s/1870s lines and fabrics and patterns.
I will say that one thing that did bum me out a tiny bit is that Anna/Meg's wedding dress is still in existence and is pretty and simple and I wish they'd recreated it for the wedding scene. It's gray and plain so I get why they went with the prettier white but still.
Wedding dresses are so hard in movies/tv shows - they have such specific cultural meaning and that changes over time so what WE project isn't necessarily what was intended back in the day. I just googled her dress though and it is nice - I don't think that grey color would have suited Emma Watson at all, but the general vibe of "this is a nice dress that would have also been worn again" could have been done, I think. Though, the frothy white dress does contrast with her much plainer clothes several years into married life.
My biggest objection was her hair being down! Adults didn't wear their hair down back in the day - that I feel was a concession to our modern audience.
I know a little bit about historical fashions because I'm a sewing nerd. A woman of that time and that social class would have had a dress made for her wedding, and it would have been her "best dress" for a long time after her marriage. It would NOT have been white because of the impossibility of keeping a white dress clean and nice for decades.
People of modest means like the Marches would probably have had one nice dress, one everyday dress, and one old worn-out everyday dress that they wore for laundry day or other chores. They used aprons to keep their clothing protected. They would have kept things that they no longer wore or were out of style and re-worked them for other members of the family or for their children. when something got too ratty to hold together, it may have been turned into aprons or quilt squares.
As to her hair being down--it may have been historically correct since having your hair down was a symbol of virginity and innocence, and wedding veils weren't a thing I don't think until later.
white wedding dresses became popular because Queen Victoria was married in a white dress, so the upper classes in England and the US copied her. You would have to have been wealthy though to have a white dress --if you depended on your wedding dress to be your "best dress" a white dress would have been very challenging.
Yes, excellent point about wedding dresses in particular!
On the hair. I actually think a lot of the time they had their hair down they were at home or they were younger, which might have been more Alcott accurate. So for example, you can see this early sketch of May, done when she was I think in her late teens: http://photos.geni.com/47/be/88/a6/41105/quz66pik/47be88a64b791b1_large.jpg
Meg, for example, had her hair up more often, especially after she married, as did Jo in New York. Beth was almost always at home so she didn't really do a lot of things that would have been proper social appearances. Amy's was often in pigtails and then when she was an adult and abroad it was up. So - on balance, yes, I do think they spent too much time with their hair down but I think generally it was to show they were in informal/familial/childhood settings.
That did make me think though that in the final wonderful scene with Jo watching her book made, her hair is 100% accurate to probably the most famous authorial portrait of Louisa: https://www.washingtonpost.com/resizer/EXo1mowvI88Hf51ZKL9H24-5W7s=/767x0/smart/arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/ZKD5FICF4EI6TKXYIUJKN7RUHE.jpg (though that photograph was taken before she wrote Little Women, I believe she was about 30 when that was done)
I don’t think I had realized when I was younger what a cautionary tale Meg is. DO NOT MARRY THE FIRST MAN WILLING TO GET PAST YOUR SISTERS O-LINE
Florence’s wicked CACKLE when Jo burns off Meg’s hair!
ahhhhhh I just got back from the third viewing and it somehow got better?? my new favourite amy thing is her telling beth "DOLLS don't get HUNGRY, beth!!!"
I AM ONLY DISAPPOINTED THAT SEXY VICAR JOHN BROOKE DIDN'T TAKE HIS SHIRT OFF
I really could have used more sexy pining John Brooke, my one quibble
Have you seen him as Andrei in the 2016 War and Peace miniseries??? He does just...so much sexy pining in that one. And sexy smouldering. And sexy staring and fighting Napoleon.
Oh no. This might actually ruin me.
tbh War and Peace leaves me cold but now that I know he plays Andrei I am MORE IN! So much sexy pining! I love this and him and him and Meg March
I love how Gerwig gave Bhaer to us both ways. Utilizing flashbacks made him seem much more a part of the story and not hastily dropped in at the end....but she STILL gave us the satisfaction of acknowledging how, yeah, he was totally dropped in at the end because Jo’s publisher made her do a romance.
Stray lines whose delivery brought me joy:
“Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that? It looks like it’s never done a day of work in its life.”
“I said hi to the horses. They seem nice.”
“I would never have sprained my ankle. I have lovely small feet, the best in the family. But I can never go home again, because I am in such trouble.”
“You will be bored of him in two years and we will be interesting forever.”
“I’m making Laurie a cast of my foot so he knows how small they are.”
NICOLE I WENT WITH FIVE PEOPLE AND NONE HAD READ THE BOOK OR SEEN A PRIOR ADAPTATION. I was robbed of the post movie dinner discussion I deserved. I loved it for all the reasons mentioned. I especially loved Marmee. Now being 58 with adult kids and BEEN THROUGH A FEW THINGS for the first time I connected with her character
I saw it this Sunday and was TRANSFIXED.
Disclaimer: I have been a Little Women stan since before I knew what that meant. Louisa May Alcott (and Bronson) and I share a birthday and my little 7yo heart knew that was because we felt the same. My uncle lived in MA and one of my fondest childhood memories was going to Orchard House and getting to see the desk that LMA wrote Little Women at, and all the paintings and drawings that May did on their walls. My mom hated it b/c I insisted that it was fine to draw on my bedroom walls after that. I had paper dolls of the June Allyson/Elizabeth Taylor movie that I played with for years!
Anyway, all of that is to say that I am both the exact demographic and the worst nightmare of this movie and I LOVED IT. I cried through so much of it. Greta really does understand the themes of the book, that have mostly gotten washed over by the various adaptations. I think it was really wise to play with the chronology, because you've got a 24yo actress playing a 12yo girl and the fact that we meet her as an adult first is all the visual tool we need to make that cognitive leap gently.
I very much like that they also did a very broad swath at the costuming, an AIR of the 1860s/70s rather than actual period-perfect. It served the characters well while again helping us with that cognitive leap. Amy's costuming was especially perfect, and gave so much to the movie. I....have never been much of an Amy fan, and I came out of this movie loving her, so congrats to Florence and Greta, you geniuses. It was perfect to have Jo and Laurie wearing the "same" vest as well, a beautiful little visual clue that Jo doesn't want to marry him, she wants to BE him.
Also, usually Behr can fuck right off but like....................hello.
I'm running off to my therapist now, but I am still processing how Gerwig did Jo dirty by letting her write that letter to Laurie! FFS, she rejected him, she didn't love him, she was relieved that Beth wasn't in love with him, she suggested that Amy would be a good match. It's OVER, shippers.
I liked it bc she still didn’t love him she just was so so lonely and also needed money and her society made male/female adult friendships completely impossible.
Yeah - this. How many times do I wonder why I didn't marry my boyfriend from my 20s now that I'm 38 and alone?
Even though you know why and you made the right choice. The pressure gets to us all - hugs
You still have that in the book, but it’s Marmee who gently asks whether Jo’s loneliness might lead her into a passionless marriage, and Jo who holds firm about it. There’s no reason to swap that dialogue other than to draw out Laurie / Jo.
YES
I also had mixed feelings about it but I loved it as a continuation to that whole women have thoughts and dreams etc but I'm so lonely.
Jessica Friedman Ilu and SO MUCH THIS
Also I ALWAYS love Pickwick Society things because “dressing up in oversized man clothes and putting on shows” is 100% ME and I LOVED the lil clink “cheers” with the pipes that Amy and Beth do.
They were so adorable in that scene. Loved seeing Beth be playful since we mostly see her very shy.
She had a lot of layers, which I feel like we don’t always see for that kind of character.
OK but Timmy was PERF as a spoiled man-boy who has slightly too many feelings for women to take care of, it was exquisite casting
The highest praise I can give is that I've loved Little Women as a book and through various adaptations for literally as long as I can remember, and in all that time, I've never once cried about Beth's death, until I saw this movie, and SOBBED. (I mean, I cried a lot in general, so I was primed for it, but still)
I have always liked Amy; thank you to Florence and Greta for showing the rest of the world why.
My crush on Saoirse Ronan grows with each passing day; a perfect Jo.
Also, the ENDING! The SUBVERSION! The big romantic scene in the rain (I have always loved the "my hands are empty" / "not empty now" exchange) PLUS the true romance of negotiating for what your work is worth and seeing your book come to be. GRETA! THANK YOU!