A Love Letter to LITTLE WOMEN
Little Women is set in a time period when women were the only ones who had the time or sensitivity to notice beautiful things, but men were the only ones who had the power or money to own them.
Each of the March sisters has a desire to paint beautiful things, write beautiful things, play beautiful things, or buy beautiful things; they’re all lovers of the world at heart, and in a way, it feels like Greta Gerwig sees herself as all four of them. She’s the kind of person who is always paddling her own canoe in pursuit of the beautiful — and not just those grand, sweeping, sunset moments, but also the little intimate encounters with beauty in the ordinary human experience. An old man who lost his daughter, crouching on the stairs to hear another young girl playing the piano; a family bundling up and trekking through the snow to give food to the needy on Christmas; two teenagers dancing wildly on the front porch, secluded from the party but also peering in on it; an emotionally charged argument set against the backdrop of an orange autumn horizon. Greta’s movies make me proud to be human, happy to live on planet Earth, and optimistic about what happens when people are people.
The emotional experience of Little Women is so overwhelming and enveloping that it almost feels like heresy to segue straight into analyzing the technical merits and craftsmanship; it’s like hearing a beautiful symphony and then proceeding to talk about the tempo and chord progressions instead of the feeling of hearing the music itself. Still, as a lover of film and a lover of filmmakers, everything about the filmmaking here made me beam from ear to ear. My friend Davey Peppers commented that while Lady Bird was an excellent demonstration of Greta Gerwig’s screenwriting talent, Little Women serves as proof of her gifting as a director. Every moment feels meticulously crafted to the max, from the lighting to the costume and set design to the edits. If I had all the footage available right now, I’d be making an analysis on the transitions and the use of color alone. Some have complained about the parallel timelines in the film being hard to follow, but an impeccable amount of care was put into differentiating past from present using every conceivable detail.
Per Gerwig’s own description, every aspect of the scenes in the past makes us feel like we’re inside a snowglobe or an ornament. The camera floats through each environment with whimsical spontaneity. The colors are warm and cozy, perpetually drenched in the glow of a fire or the daze of a sunset. The costumes, likewise, pop with the brightness and personality of youth. But of course, these details — and their subsequent contrast with the much colder and more immobilized scenes set in the present — are easy to pick up on from the first watch. Gerwig’s real brilliance shows itself when we transition between the two timelines, with the memories of the past and the realities of the present clashing and contrasting endlessly. Characters in the present day talk about their memories of the past while drenched in the blue shadow of an old house — with the warm glow of the sun on the trees remaining out of focus behind them. The same beach is shown full of life and color and then again completely devoid of it. As the story goes on, the costume choices not only become more monochromatic, but also more drab and suffocating. The hairstyles are also a major component in the timeline differentiation; while the basic device is “long hair is past and short hair is present,” the actual hair choices within each scene subconsciously evoke deeper feelings. When Laurie returns home in the present and wakes Jo to tell her he’s married Amy, the sleeping Jo’s hair is long and unkempt once more, suggesting her yearning for her childhood with Laurie. The other sisters’ hairstyles reflect their journeys, too: Amy’s childish braids and bangs become a tightly-pulled bun; Meg’s prim-and-proper style slowly relaxes into something more plain and unadorned. And Laura Dern’s hairstyle (by Gerwig’s own admission) was designed to integrate elements of each of her daughters into the final orchestration.
Speaking of orchestration, Alexandre Desplat’s score reflects intentionality in every precise musical motif. The musical composition playing when Jo gets in the carriage to pursue Professor Bhaer is something we haven’t heard before in the film; it feels excited and eager, but maybe also a little overdone and sensationalized. The real climax of the film occurs in the intercutting, as we see Jo’s book being printed and published — and for this moment, instead of creating a new theme, Desplat reaches back to some of the musical motifs from Jo’s childhood and unites them into one grand crescendo. The dream has been fulfilled. This is the happy ending Jo dreamed about as a girl.
Many have chalked up the extent of Gerwig’s unique take on the source material to her use of parallel timelines and non-linear storytelling. I don’t think that’s the only gimmick that makes this adaption fresh, though. The real soul of this story shines through so strongly because of the way Greta reframes these classic characters with mannerisms and elements of self-expression that remain grounded in the 1700s setting — but also don’t feel that different from the way young people act today. No, there aren’t any teenagers saying “ok, boomer” or doing Fortnite dances — and thank god for that — but Laurie and the March sisters still feel profoundly relatable and modern, even if they’re wearing corsets. It’s what Hamilton did for the Founding Fathers, transforming them from monolithic stone statues into real human beings who had emotions and desires just like people today.
Of course, the truly subversive take on the source material comes in the last 10 minutes — and the “have your cake and eat it, too” twist on the ending is what makes this one of the best book-to-screen adaptions ever made. Commenting on the author’s possible regrets in making the narrative choices she made, while also embracing those choices wholesale and playing to an audience that wants to see them happen? It’s unprecedented.
In the closing moments, it’s clear that this story has been about more than just four fictional sisters; it’s also been telling the story of the woman who created them, Louisa May Alcott. Greta Gerwig’s deep love and appreciation for Alcott, and the way she metatextually works it into the movie, is what gives this adaption the heart and soul lacking from the latest remake of A Christmas Carol or Sherlock Holmes. By reframing Jo as the spiritual representation of Alcott in the narrative, even giving her some of Alcott’s own words for dialogue, the story is transformed. This is not just fiction — it’s an inspiration, and it’s also a thing of beauty. Jo March would be proud.
