Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Jayne Houdyshell, Chros Cooper, Meryl Streep.
Your local popular bus has arguably less chance of being as regular as the constant delivery of one of the most adapted books of the 19th century being yet again remade for cinema or television; the difference being is that the bus might take you where you need to get to, but Little Women under any guise will no doubt charm and leave you nursing a love and a craving to immerse yourself once again into Louisa May Alcott’s novel once more.
There have so many variations and adaptions of Little Women that in the digital age it could hold the viewer’s attention on its broadcast channel for weeks without repetition or concern of leaving the audience feeling bored or cheated.
So many adaptions of which have scoured the depths of the dynamic of the four sisters from Concord, and yet there is always a new angle in which to look at any classic given fresh eyes and a mind which is frightened to ask questions that are relatable to the modern-day experience. To that end the collaboration between director and screen writer great Gerwig and a cast that understands fully that theirs is not just another film in which to add a credit to their bio from, that Little Women is a film of time, of the first girl’s own stories, an established narrative dealing with the feminist idea and what it actually means to be a woman in the time of Civil War and the expectations of society.
If Katherine Hepburn was to make her name in the 1933 George Cuker directed film, and if Christian Bale was to frame the part of Laurie with a sense of brooding that would make anyone performing the part in future feel as if they were up against the embodiment of the part, then Greta Gerwig’s cast is one of near perfection, especially in the selection of Saoirse Ronan as the heroine Jo March, Florence Pugh as her sister Amy and Meryl Streep in glorious form as Aunt March.
Not only does Greta Gerwig offer difference in her cinematic vision, she brings the unspoken narrative a fresh appeal, the alluded to tomboyishness of Jo in other adaptions is replaced by a hard-hitting realisation of a strong and wilful personality who sees the injustice forced against women in a time when not only were the actions of what was once considered the inverted woman to be questioned, but also defined as intricate to the way that the United States of America had to move forward.
Greta Gerwig has brought a different flavour to the world of Little Women, one not encumbered by holding back the narrative underneath, of the unspoken, one that is endearing, but also resolute in the director’s own belief of pushing forward the voices of women. Outstanding cinema!
Ian D. Hall