girlyswot

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.