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review: little women (2019)
"Women have minds and souls as well as just hearts, and they've got ambition and talent as well as just beauty. And I'm sick of people saying love is all a woman is good for. I'm so sick of it!! But I'm... I'm so lonely."
A confession: I've never read Little Women, and this is the first adaptation I've seen of the classic novel, though I've had a general idea of the story thanks to cultural osmosis and that one Friends episode. This is both a sheepish indictment of my reluctance to read slice-of-life stories and no guarantee that this film would speak to the die-hard fans of the literary version.
I enjoyed it a great deal, however. The cast did a stunning job, to my eyes, and though Saorise Ronan as Jo March was an undeniable stage stealer there was lots to love about each of them. The narrative also walked a good middle ground between being coherent and pleasing to newcomers while offering a new pathway through a familiar garden to the old guard. A movie can never capture all the depth of a novel, but it did seem to capture its heart. The audience I sat in laughed, and gasped, and of course wept - someone over to my upper right had a proper bawl, in fact. I hope it was the catharsis they needed.
The film refrained from being preachy, but it didn't shy from the obvious themes. Character-heavy storytelling at its best: there are many people, perspectives, and opinions, and some points are well made, and some personal realities may hit home. Certainly some hit me. As a woman; and as a woman who sometimes writes; and as a woman who is uncertain she loves... well. I am no Jo, but I am not any of them in whole, and that's the fun of it; to sometimes see myself reflected, and other times marvel at how different humans can be.
I liked the approach they took to the ending. It worked for me.
On the whole, warmly recommended and a good use of an afternoon.
A confession: I've never read Little Women, and this is the first adaptation I've seen of the classic novel, though I've had a general idea of the story thanks to cultural osmosis and that one Friends episode. This is both a sheepish indictment of my reluctance to read slice-of-life stories and no guarantee that this film would speak to the die-hard fans of the literary version.
I enjoyed it a great deal, however. The cast did a stunning job, to my eyes, and though Saorise Ronan as Jo March was an undeniable stage stealer there was lots to love about each of them. The narrative also walked a good middle ground between being coherent and pleasing to newcomers while offering a new pathway through a familiar garden to the old guard. A movie can never capture all the depth of a novel, but it did seem to capture its heart. The audience I sat in laughed, and gasped, and of course wept - someone over to my upper right had a proper bawl, in fact. I hope it was the catharsis they needed.
The film refrained from being preachy, but it didn't shy from the obvious themes. Character-heavy storytelling at its best: there are many people, perspectives, and opinions, and some points are well made, and some personal realities may hit home. Certainly some hit me. As a woman; and as a woman who sometimes writes; and as a woman who is uncertain she loves... well. I am no Jo, but I am not any of them in whole, and that's the fun of it; to sometimes see myself reflected, and other times marvel at how different humans can be.
I liked the approach they took to the ending. It worked for me.
On the whole, warmly recommended and a good use of an afternoon.
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When I went to see the movie, I felt it captured what was best about the first book, and the best in all the characters. In fact, it managed to make Amy, who was probably the sister I liked the least, almost my favorite. Her character in the movie encapsulated a lot of frustration and anger I think Alcott probably felt, possibly even more than Jo.
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I also found myself really liking Amy! They selected great scenes to show her at both worst and best, and the middling place between them was a compellingly passionate individual.
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It was a good movie!! I felt seen.
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