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Little Women: Reviewed

Join me as I jump into my reflections on the highly anticipated masterpiece of Greta Gerwig's Little Women

By Abby AllenPublished 4 years ago 10 min read
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Timothée Chalamet brings Theodore Lawrence to life in his swoon-worthy performance

From Lady Bird to little women, Greta Gerwig has done it again. After long anticipation, the widely-adapted 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott has once again been translated to film in the best possible version to date. Despite being the 6th Feature Film (alongside several television and stage productions), Gerwig manages to recreate, reinvent and preserve the exact right amount of cinematic mastery that causes audiences to feel contemporarily situated within this historically beautiful context.

Synopsis (Spoilers)

Little Women charts the story of Jo March and her 3 sisters: Meg, Amy and Beth. During a dual timeline that features the sisters both in their youthful teenaged days and later in their young adult lives, this film embodies the feeling of love, hate and everything in between through the unmistakable bond of sisterhood and friendship. When they're not fighting and loving one another, the story follows their journeys through life: Jo follows her passion of writing in New York whilst Meg and Amy follow their hearts by finding love. Meanwhile for shy Beth, she stays at home with her mother Marmie, visiting the sick and homeless and eventually falling fatally ill. This story is one that reaches the hearts of those with families; those who have fallen victim to heartbreak; and also those - especially women - who decide to write for themselves about their own story, no matter how seemingly uninteresting their stories are. Some people say this is not a feminist story; and yes, whilst some of the female characters' decisions are not always the most empowering, it is in the messiness and vulnerability of their humanity that proves the simple message: women's stories deserve to be shown and heard.

Greta Gerwig

As announced this week, Little Women has received 6 Oscar nominations: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Music Score and Best Costume Design. This much-deserved recognition was simultaneously overshadowed by the disappointing absence of Gerwig’s nomination for Best Director (as discussed on my previous blog post). Nevertheless, the undeniable talent of Gerwig to resurrect these vibrant characters to life in such a way that brought a contemporary feel to the age-old tale is what really makes the snub that bit more bittersweet.

Cinematography

From the nervously relatable ink-blotched fingers of Jo to the slow motion running shots, the magnificent cinematography of the first 10 minutes wets the audience’s taste buds for the next 2 hours that follow. Whilst maintaining just the right amount of originality whilst remaining true to the book, the creativity seen through the dual plot line, alongside the mirroring of scenes and foreshadowing serves to engulf the audience in a way that both complicates and engages fully in the events of the girls' lives. One especially great dual scene (spolier!) is when Beth is taken ill with Scarlet Fever. In the older scene, Jo is seen to run downstairs and faced with the relief of Beth sitting at the table with her mother. However, in the newer scene, the audience reluctantly is shown through the exact same sequence of events, only to find Marmie sat devastatingly alone. Whilst the audience is indirectly warned by this symmetrically mirroring, the style of the cinematography cleverly plays on the emotion of the events that lead to Beth's eventual death in the second retelling.

Continuing this theme of cinematographic analysis, the specific use of light throughout the film- often going unnoticed in the first few times of watching- serves to highlight this sisterly intimacy once again. The lighting of the March house, whilst muted at times, never manages to ignore the complete warmth that radiates the home. Of course this serves to echo the harsh love that all the girls feel toward one another as well as making it an aesthetically comfortable environment that translates both on and off the screen.

Another product of Gerwig's great direction is the originality of voice-overs. Whilst most films tend to pair voice-overs with the visual continuation of the narrative, Gerwig chooses to situate the characters in an unspecified space of ambiguous temporality, talking directly into the camera whilst it increasingly zooms closer to their faces. This direct engagement with the audience not only reflects the originality that Gerwig was seemingly going for, but also her attention to emphasise the candor and intimacy between her characters and the audience.

Actors

Saoirse Ronan- despite her youthful age of 25, Ronan conducts her usual captivating dominance over the screen as Jo March. Once again the resonance of a young girl grappling with her desire to be successful at the expense of being painfully lonely is one that drives straight through the heart and motif of her story: 'I'm so sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for [...] but I'm so lonely'. As if to embody her own confidence when she marched up to Gerwig saying 'I'm going to be Jo', Ronan's candid and strong-willed performance as the movie's protagonist serves to show the compelling nature of this story as one driven not only by a great original text/adapted screenplay, but also the enticement of that work to compel actors to bring those visions to life.

Timothée Chalamet- With the accompaniment of Chalamet’s doe-eyed Laurie, there really was no mistaking the professional exuberance of his character’s decadent idleness. Gracefully draping himself over various ornamental pieces of furniture, Chalamet emphasises the pure ‘Laurieness’ recognised by millions who have read the book. In a similar way, the androgynous pair of Ronan and Chalamet (as Jo and Laurie), is again a testament to Gerwig's perfect casting and recreation of their chemistry in Lady Bird. In their androgyny, Jo and Laurie become two sides of the same coin, even sharing the same clothing at times (this I will discuss later). The consistent euphoric bliss of their friendship is noticeably present during their first meeting, where they dance with shameless abandon outside the ball. Whilst Laurie's love never seems to be enough for Jo, his heartbreakingly vulnerable performance on the side of a Massachusetts hill echoes the interesting and cultivating way that Chalamet chooses to channel his work as a way to disrupt and deconstruct certain tropes of masculinity.

Florence Pugh- whilst Amy has definitely never been the most likeable out of the March sisters, there is something about Pugh's performance that offers a new insight to her character that audiences may never have been exposed to before. Pugh manages to capture the maliciousness cruelty of sisters, whilst also providing the humanity and jealousy of living in your sister’s shadow. Her tenacity to marry rich and extensive understanding of the world for women and marriage as an economic proposition is one that both disturbs and resonates with many young women. Whilst her assertive confidence serves as comic relief in the musical overlapping of the sisters' incessant chattering over one another, Amy embodies the unapologetic selfishness of wanting to marry rich and live a conventional life.

Lara Dern- Little Women would certainly not be the same without the fantastic matriarch of the family. Marmie embodies something in every sister: be that her kindness, philanthropy, wilfulness and anger. It is with her fierce emotion - and the vulnerability in showing that emotional human condition - that serves to translate so well through all of her daughters, but most notably in this film through the character of Jo. In a scene with her daughter, Marmie admits that she is angry at the world every single day. This complete honesty and abandon of any emotional pretence is something that is fully grasped by Dern in her full-throttled performance not only as a mother but also a fellow woman.

Meryl Streep- of course this film would not have had the same impact without Streep's fantastic portrayal of the other matriarch of the family. Whilst Aunt March serves as the cruel reminder of conventionality - most notably that marriage is always an economic proposition - the exasperated portrayal of Aunt March is completely Meryl-ised through her undeniable talent to construct a fond relative wanting the best for her family.

Sound

From set to sound, the musicality of this film is like a symphony of sound from beginning to end. Alexandre desplat's original score serves as an all-encompassing  accompaniment that perfectly fits the emotional journey of the March sisters. Even now, as I sit here listening to the soundtrack, there is an element of nostalgic magic  that captures the same phenomenal sensibility as the Harry Potter and Twilight sagas. In the same way as the non-digetic sounds function to really bring to life the sentiment of the screen, the musicality of the dialogue between the sisters serves as a harmonious blurring of voices and provides a fast pace rhythm throughout every scene.

Clothing

As a period piece of drama, the clothing in Little Women perfectly draws out the tonality and individuality of the March sisters. In an interview with Vogue, costume director Jacqueline Durran comments on the absence of a corset for Jo, suggesting it was right for her character to be unrestrained by the binaries of conventional period clothing and instead reflecting her tomboyish and nonconformist nature. For Laurie, she would lay out a set of his clothes and let Chalamet mix and match with whatever he deemed necessary and appropriate for his character. Durran also comments on the androgynous pairing of Jo and Laurie, detailing how they would, at times, swap jackets in order to echo this symmetrical mirroring of one another. The free licence and collaboration between costume designer and actor here becomes one of the most interesting approaches to the characters and their vital exploration of exposition.

The Men

Despite not being the lead character, Laurie manages to create a uniquely special bond with each of the March women: his androgynous best-friendship with Jo, his acquiescent and playful encounter with Meg at the debutante ball, his frequent closeness and dancing with Beth and of course his ‘bothering’ and eventual engagement with Amy. It truly is extraordinary to see that whilst this is a movie about the incredible women that make up the March family, it also creates their world to lovingly include men such as Laurie, John, Mr March and Mr Laurence. Without a doubt, Little Women is their story, but this doesn’t mean to say that the male characters are any less important, loveable or relevant in their relation to, and adoration of, the March girls.

Last Comment

Whilst I, like most film-lovers, often get caught up in the unmistakeably addictive world that is visual story telling, I had an unusually immense emotional reaction to this film. Not only was this aided by the all-star cast and brilliant direction from Gerwig, but also the painstakingly important message that echoes the historical ghost of feminism right to the current day. In turning down Jo’s novel, Mr Dashwood provides the perfect, age-old allegory of the female limitation- of barring inspiring young women who were utilising their talent to write. However, what this film captures from the novel and presents through the imperious curiosity of his daughters is twofold: firstly the undeniable curiosity and willingness of women to support women; and secondary the utter relief of hearing one’s own story-whether seemingly domestic or mundane - written and celebrated by fellow contemporaries. I think as a young woman watching this in 2019, the shameless honesty and pride of these ‘little women’ constructed by Alcott in 1868 continues to light the fire of female empowerment to this day. Whilst in some ways it might mean something different to us now, it also maintains the fact that women’s stories are forever worthy of recognition, time and credit. Only when celebrating and sharing the experiences of both men and women can we fully be free of ‘living in a man’s world’.

review
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About the Creator

Abby Allen

21//Student//https://oohmercedestumblr.wordpress.com/

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