Little Women

[girlyswot]

The last film I saw in the cinema was The Artist in 2012. And, to be honest, I don't think I've watched more than half a dozen films on DVD or TV since then either. I was going to go to Little Women over Christmas, and then I was put off by a couple of things, and then someone else said they thought I'd enjoy it, and anyway I went. I probably shouldn't have bothered after all.

I genuinely have no idea if it's a good film or not. I cannot imagine what the experience of watching it without knowing the books intimately is like. I don't even know whether it would make any sense at all. It's told in a very weird fashion with two alternating timelines one of which is more or less Little Women, and the other more or less Good Wives. It felt to me a bit like the Facebook highlights of someone's life, thrown together with Facebook's usual carelessness with respect to chronology. I certainly never knew what was coming next.

Obviously, like all films, it's massively simplified. You have to make choices. But the choices made will determine what story it is you're telling. And Greta Gerwig wanted to tell a story mostly about writing. It's Jo's story, of course, as the books are Jo's story too. But in the books, Jo's story is part of a bigger story about being a family and being a Christian. In the films, there was something of the family and none of the faith. The film began and ended with scenes about her writing, however. At the beginning she's selling a story to a newspaper, and at the end the family are celebrating the publication of her first book, rather than Marmee's birthday. The book, of course, is Little Women.

UGH UGH UGH. This was one of the things I knew about which put me off. I hate it when female authors are identified with their heroines. It never happens to male authors (that I can think of). Jo March is not Louisa May Alcott, and Jo's story is weakened if you try to make it so. Jo didn't need the publisher's daughters to demand he publish her book (I believe for Alcott it was the publisher's niece). It's also pretty patronising to Alcott, to suggest that she's only capable of writing books about herself and her own experiences, rather than creating characters like other authors do.

So there's that. I also found myself railing against the de-Christianisation of the book. There was no reference to Pilgrim's Progress, to the Bibles given as Christmas presents, to Father's role as a chaplain in the army (he does marry Meg and John, but other than that you wouldn't know he was ordained). Even when Beth had scarlet fever, and when she's dying, no one prays. Worst of all, the scene where they take breakfast to the Hummels has people in the background going to church. As if to say not only that it's better to care for the poor than go to church, but somehow that those two activities are mutually exclusive, rather than, as in the book, the Marches caring for others because of their faith.

There were good things. Saoirse Ronan is really excellent. The scenes I liked best were the younger girls fighting. I genuinely felt like there was a real family, loving each other even while they angered and frustrated and irritated each other.

There were annoying things. Like, if you're going to have Professor Bhaer telling Jo his hands are empty, and her replying 'Not empty now', you have to have her actually put her hands in his. THAT'S THE WHOLE POINT OF THAT SCENE. I felt like they completely botched Laurie and Amy's story. And I really needed Professor Bhaer to have seen something of Jo's writing to give him a reason to visit, rather than just randomly turning up. Oh, and the worst thing of all, we're told that Jo has refused Laurie within about ten minutes of the film starting. I mean, I know she refuses him, but why wouldn't you let me keep hoping for an hour or two? Weird.

In general you could tell that Gerwig had tried hard to use dialogue from the book. But films are just different. And this film felt like it didn't trust its viewers to understand it at all. Everything was spoken. Everything was underlined and highlighted. This was where the dual timeline felt incredibly patronising. Yes, we get that Beth is ill twice. And that both times Jo is looking after her. And the first time she lives but the second time she doesn't. Do they really think we wouldn't have remembered that and noticed the parallels if you'd given us the story chronologically?

I cried, practically throughout the whole thing, but honestly I don't think it was because of the film. I think it was that the film kept having moments which reminded me of the books, and the books make me cry. I was reliving a whole lot in my head that never appeared on screen, and it matters to me. These are people I've known and loved for 30 years but, sadly, this was not their story.

Comments

[mountainkiss]

Why do you hope for Jo and Laurie?

[girlyswot]

Mostly for Laurie's sake, really. I find it so hard to believe in him and Amy. I do think Jo and Laurie would have found it hard, but I think they could also have found it fun and worthwhile to do the hard thing and love each other anyway. And because I think Alcott sets you up for a book and a half to expect and want them to be together, and I love that part of the story. To tell you up front that it's not going to happen seems bizarre to me.

[mountainkiss]

I understand why you don’t want it pre-signalled, sorry. It was why you wanted it per se that I was curious about.

[caulkhead]

I hate it when female authors are identified with their heroines. It never happens to male authors

Oh, me too. (It seems to happen a lot to Jane Austen, for some reason). And I can't believe I had never noticed before how very gendered it is.

[girlyswot]

There was a dreadful adaptation of Mansfield Park completely ruined by the insertion of an event from Austen's life which made no sense at all and entirely altered Fanny's whole character.

[legionseagle]

Was that the one with Billie Piper or was that a completely different dreadful adaptation of Mansfield Park?

[girlyswot]

Different one. It had Jonny Lee Miller as Edmund. Frances something was Fanny.

[girlyswot]

This one: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0178737/

I have not watched the Billie Piper one. I assumed I would hate it.

[legionseagle]

I have literally never forgiven either Anne Hathaway or James McAvoy for Becoming Jane. In fact, I've never forgiven anyone who had anything to do with that movie.

[girlyswot]

Oh, that was THE WORST.

I watched it in America when I was so homesick I went to see anything with people speaking in English accents. But even then I hated it.

[white_hart]

But in the case of Little Women, a lot of it is very closely based on Alcott and her sisters, so I think it does make sense here in a way that it wouldn't in lots of other stories (including literally anything else Alcott wrote).

[white_hart]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy the film. I loved it, and wrote about it here if you want to read that.

[girlyswot]

Oh, I did notice the knitting! I meant to look up the mittens and see if there's a pattern for them. And some lovely shawls, I agree.

[callmemadam]

Hello, I nipped over here when you replied to a comment of mine.

So there's that. I also found myself railing against the de-Christianisation of the book. There was no reference to Pilgrim's Progress, to the Bibles given as Christmas presents, to Father's role as a chaplain in the army (he does marry Meg and John, but other than that you wouldn't know he was ordained). Even when Beth had scarlet fever, and when she's dying, no one prays.

This was what maddened me about the Susan Sarandon version. Also making Prof. Bhaer far more attractive than Laurie, which wasn't fair. A lot of people seem to prefer this film, so I may watch it.

As for Jo and Laurie, I think your attitude depends on how old you are when you read the book for the first time. I remember actually crying when Jo turned Laurie down because I felt so sorry for him. I suppose my very young self was in love with him. This could be why An Old-Fashioned Girl is my favourite book by LMA. As the author says in her introduction, the 'right' marriage will please her readers.

[girlyswot]

Oddly, it didn't annoy me quite so much in the Sarandon version. I'm not sure why. Maybe I was just less alert to it.

I don't think I've read An Old-Fashioned Girl, but I think I have it on my kindle. I shall dig it out and give it a try!

[nineveh_uk]

I noticed the same about the utter lack of religion in this version of Little Women, and felt that it was different in this regard from the Sarandon version. And I also, though not religious myself, thought that it was something that let the film down. There are plenty of C19/early 20 children's novels in which religion isn't that important, even An Old-Fashioned Girl, but I really don't think that you can say that about Little Women and its sequels. I felt the lack of the March family's background, not just Christianity but a very specific branch, was a problem in the film because we ended up with no sense of what was driving them. Why when they are obviously the same social class as the Lawrences, as Aunt March, as Meg's rich friends, don't they behave like them? Why are their guiding principles apparently different. The film gave no sense that there was a coherent philosophy behind their social oddity. I think that's the difference with the Sarandon film, which though not dwelling on religion does open with Pilgrim's Progress (IIRC) and has Jo state explicitly to Laurie that her family is guided by transcendentalist principles of self-denial, which may be more Bronson Alcott than perhaps the more mainstream version that LM needed to put in her novel, but does at least make the point clear: this family leads a life built on religious/philosophical principle, even if it doesn't go into the detail. Whereas in the Gerwig film, we see the self-denial strongly, but we don't know why, and I think that gap is what is visible.

I did enjoy the film very much (which I watched in the cinema on NYE with parents and youngest sister, and the whole cinema was enraptured, the audience focus felt very noticeable), but in the end I felt it wasn't quite as special as the reviews considered it, though I suppose that's hardly a unique issue. It did do some things very well.