Little Women

seen on 5 January 2020

Greta Gerwig directs Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlon, Laura Dern and Timothée Chalamet in her own adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's famous novel about four sisters growing up near Concord Massachusetts in the 1860s (in the shadow of the American Civil War).

The book has been adapted for theatre, film and TV many times - indeed there was a creditable TV version as recently as 2017 - but a fresh look at a much-loved classic can often be justified if it is well conceived and produced. In this case, the film is an enjoyable entertainment, perhaps undercutting its more melodramatic moments and thus avoiding some of the sentimentality attached to the storyline.

Rather than presenting the story in chronological order, Gerwig has decided to intertwine two narrative threads: the girlhood of the March sisters, and the early efforts of the adult Jo March to become a writer. The highs and lows of childhood and adolescence are thus often portrayed more as reminiscences than as present-time experience - Jo for instance is seen to be almost dreaming memories of Beth's first sickness while she travels back from New York as a young woman to be with Beth in her final illness. This technique emphasises the idea that Little Women as a novel emerged from Alcott's own experience, Jo being clearly the author learning to turn her own life into literature as she matures as a writer. We are thus engaged with the familiar story and at the same time intrigued by the story of how the story came to be written, and the idea of artistic creation is buttressed by a beautiful sequence late in the film showing the mechanics of book production and binding.

The performances are charming, the settings idyllic (apart from the dire poverty of the sickly neighbours), the passions high but safely circumscribed by good manners and good upbringing; the forbidding older characters have hearts of gold: the ambience of the book (I presume, not having read it) is reflected in the good humour and light touch of the film's director and adapter.