I was so anxious to see it and I hoped that I would enjoy it the same way I enjoyed the 1994 film when I saw that in the theater. It makes perfect sense that another Little Women remake would be released now, not only because we just celebrated the 150th anniversary (which is why last year saw 2 other Little Women adaptations released) but also because the film industry loves to recall the same audience. The women my age who saw the 1994 film are now grown, with children of their own so we can share the same story with them, starring the actresses that represent their own generation.
The 1994 film had 90's It girls Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst and Claire Danes accompanied by Christian Bale, whereas this new version stars Saoirse Ronan and Emma Watson, who represents this new generation so well because we all saw her grow up on screen, portraying Hermione Granger in eight Harry Potter films. Some of the images from this film hearkened back to the 1994 one almost identically, such as when they walk to give their Christmas breakfast to the Hummel family
and also when the family circles around the newly married John Brooke and Meg
During the first few minutes of the film, I started to panic. Unlike all the other film adaptations I've seen, this one does not follow a linear telling of the events in the text. Instead of beginning on Christmas Eve when the girls are young, it opens up with Jo standing outside of a NYC newspaper office, gathering up the courage to go in and sell one of her stories.
It seems to come in closer to the Good Wives half of the story, rather than the classic Little Women (The book was originally published in two parts, the first being Little Women and the second story being Good Wives, when the girls are young women). The portions of the story that are quintessential Little Women like meeting Laurie, Amy burning Jo's manuscript, Amy falling through the ice and more) are depicted in flashbacks. Seeing such a familiar story presented in a new, unpredictable way made me very uncomfortable at first and my internal monologue went something like "Oh my God! Why did they change the timeline?! What are they thinking?! They're going to wreck this story! If they ruin this story for me I will never be able to get over it and I will spend the rest of my days spelling out my arguments to anyone who will listen and I will end up wasting the rest of my life because I won't be able to concentrate on anything else!"
However, once I settled into the story I realized that the new presentation makes perfect sense in context of recalling a generation of movie go-ers such as myself.
When I saw the 1994 film, I was 12 years old. I had just read Little Women for the first time (an abridged version from Scholastic book orders, which I still have). I wanted to see that movie so badly and then it turned out I had strep throat, so I had to lay in bed and wait even longer. It kind of fit perfectly, because if strep throat isn't treated, it can turn into scarlet fever, which is what Beth's fate is in the story. I finally got to see the movie, and it made a lasting impression on me. . .I mean, how many times by now have I blogged about something Little Women related???
The 1994 film really focused on the March girls' childhood. When Meg becomes engaged, the film reaches a turning point, and we fast forward four years to her wedding. As the family circles around Meg and John Brooke and sing the hymn "For the Beauty of the Earth" (which I also included in my own wedding for this reason) we see a contented Meg, and solemn Jo who resents this change, a Beth who looks even more sickly and fragile and a beautiful, grown up Amy. After rejecting Laurie, Jo makes her way to New York, accepting that she is stepping over the "great divide of childhood and all that lay beyond."
In contrast, this 2019 film does not focus so much on childhood, but rather on young adulthood. Rather than allowing the audience to witness their childhood 'first hand', it shows the audience four young women and then shows us what happened in their lives that shaped them into the people they've become.
When the film opens, we see Jo in NYC, a place as creative as she is and as chaotic as she feels her life is at that moment.
We see Meg in her cottage with her two young children, the symbol of domesticity and motherhood.
Beth is in orchard House still, because her fate never really permits her to grow up very much so she never leaves her parents' home.
Meanwhile Amy is pursuing painting and proposals in Paris, a place of beauty and romance.
I enjoyed this rendition very much because it included some very important ideas from the book which do not usually get included in the films. For example, although Meg loves her husband very much, she feels burdened by their poverty and often wishes for the luxuries she sees her friends enjoying. One day as Meg is shopping with her well-to-do friend Sallie Moffat, she sees some silk that she would like for a dress. She knows it's an expense they cannot afford, but she purchases it anyways. Afterwards, she feels so remorseful for her her selfishness and sorry that she is making her husband feel like a poor provider that she sells the fabric to her friend. That type of interaction is present in almost every marriage, and as I've written before, Little Women might as well be a guidebook for Transcendentalist ideals of love of marriage. The 1994 film has Meg declaring that she's not afraid of being poor rather than admitting that she is still struggling to overcome her childish greediness.
The 2019 film also shows us how Jo struggles with her jealousy as she gets older. In the 1994 film, she does not seem to be bothered at all that Amy and Laurie get married. She merely makes Amy promise to always live closy by so she does not lose another sister. However, in the book Jo struggles more with the news. She knows she is not in love with Laurie, but she still mourns the loss of her childhood best friend; she knows that she will never be his best friend again because his wife, her own sister, will now be in that position and share intimacies of their own. This 2019 film shows Jo writing Laurie a letter, asking him to propose to her again, before she finds out about his recent marriage to Amy. She retrieves the letter before he can find it, tears it up, and throws it into the water, quietly accepting that she lost her own chance at a life with Laurie.
Likewise, Amy also seems to struggle more with Laurie's courtship of her. She tells him that she has always been second to Jo, and she does not want to live the rest of her life knowing that she was a consolation prize. There is more attention given to the choice she makes between Fred Vaughn and Laurie, and how it impacts her.
The ending of the film seems to be garnering quite a bit of attention because it breaks the fourth wall, with Jo speaking directly into the camera, negotiating to own the rights to her new book (which is titled Little Women) and watching the first copy of the book get produced at the publisher. The metafiction devices at work are not simply to differentiate it from other film adaptations, but to provide some biographical information on the author Louisa May Alcott; the 1994 film includes a line about Meg's father's school having to close down after he "admitted a little dark girl." I do not recall if that's mentioned in the text, but I do know that Bronson Alcott did admit a black girl into one of his schools which caused a scandal, and led to the school's closing, so slipping in some biographical details is not new.
However, the ending also serves to highlight the strength of Jo's character and provide an ending that is not focused on marriage being her happily ever after. The 1994 film ends with Jo and Professor Bhaer kissing under an umbrella.
This ending includes that image too, but her real "happily ever after" moment comes with the success she made herself with her writing and her resolve to control her creative fate. Alcott herself did not want to end Jo's story with a marriage, but had to in order to appease her publisher and her young fans, so this ending pays homage to her original intention because the marriage is not the be all, end all.
In closing, I LOVED this movie.
I do not think it will ever replace the 1994 film that I saw when I was 12, but it's a very close second.
I feel like the 1994 film is all about childhood, whereas this film is about becoming an adult. . .which works out pretty perfectly for me and others my age.
