Greta Gerwig’s new film, the literary adaptation “Little Women,” feels weighed down by its history. Louisa May Alcott’s novel is not the only major literary work about sisters, but her book is so specific about the bonds of sisterly love – beyond any other theme – that it’s turned it into an unavoidable classic; an unavoidable classic that has been adapted numerous times, from George Cukor’s warm 1932 version all the way to a recent miniseries. Why, after the specific inventiveness of her last film, “Lady Bird,” was Gerwig regressing to this? Yet another adaptation of this novel. It’s the weight of expectation, and it’s a weight – different but also similar – that our protagonist Jo March, carries around with her throughout the film.
In a clip that seems fated for multiple award-show reels, Saoirse Ronan, who plays Jo, stands in an attic, distressed at the way her life has stalled, works her way up to angry tears. “I’m so sick of saying that love is all a woman is fit for!” she declares before a pause. “But, I’m so lonely.” The moment and the preceding monologue are lifted not from the novel but from a letter that Alcott wrote and which Gerwig has co-opted for the script. It works. “Little Women” has always been about the uncomfortable in-between–between childhood and adulthood, between love and work, between art and commerce. And to be in-between is to be ambivalent, and it’s that ambivalence that’s most at work here in a way that feels surprising and challenging about Gerwig’s adaptation.
The verdict on literary adaptations of very famous novels is that they are almost always safe bets for commercial rewards but hardly inventive or subversive. And, yet, the idea of “Little Women” as a quaint tale of sisterhood misses the restlessness that runs through Alcott’s work. And it’s that restlessness that Gerwig harnesses most here. Her “Little Women” is an impossibly untidy, sprawling mess of a film – in the very best of ways, and in ways you don’t expect. The most ostensible way this announces itself is in the construction of the narrative – the original novel is split in two parts, told in linear-fashion. But Gerwig begins her film towards the middle of part 2 and presents the story in a non-linear fashion, moving between the past and present as Jo must decide what kind of woman she wants to be. And what kind of writer.
“Little Women” has always been about Jo’s artistic desires but it’s not only about that, but Gerwig places them front and centre. And with that it becomes clear why she felt the need to adapt the story. Whether we believe Fellini’s idea that all art is biography Gerwig’s empathy for these characters, for Jo specifically, feels personal. The final shot of the film is of Ronan’s Jo looking through a window as an important event happens for her. It is a happy one and yet her face exudes something beyond flat one-dimensional glee. Instead it is something more complicated, complex and even opaque. That face is the key to the way the film is working here. “Little Women” never goes for the easy thing, but instead keeps complicating our ideas of these characters, and even about the medium.
In this way, it oddly reminded me of Martin Scorsese’s work in “The Irishman”. There’s a messiness that is endemic in both films. Florence Pugh (giving an excellent performance) at 23 looks too mature for Amy, who she plays at 13 and 20. The film’s vignette structure sometimes resists logic and seems sporadic. But there is a central intensity and passion to the project that is overwhelming for how much it identifies with the people in it. Gerwig’s most compelling conceit throughout is the way she leans in to the idea of chaos on film – each scene with the March sisters becomes drowned in overlapping dialogue. We never know where to turn our attention, instead – like young Laurie beguiled by these wonderful women – we feel overwhelmed by the emotion they have.
And so, the hyper-excited nature of the girls bleeds into the film’s structure – at first the jumps in time are jarring, especially because the film’s one limitation is the way the characters look the same, whether in the past or the present. Is it too much to explain that limitation away as evidence of the way the film seems to be playing with the idea of memory and reality? Possibly, but it’s a credit to the film that what it’s working at is emotion and sensitivity beyond logic and order. This is a film that disregards what should happen for the endless possibilities of what can happen. Gerwig’s sensibilities as an actor is, perhaps, what makes her such a good director – pushing the cast to different shades of themselves. Timothée Chalamet has never been as moving as he is here as Laurie. He’s not the best in the cast (Ronan is hard to argue against) but Gerwig directs and writes Laurie’s role in the drama in a way that opens up the possibilities of this story.
There’s an unsubtle scene at the end where a group of young girls confess their love for the writing of Jo March. It’s the single moment in the film the story seems almost too twee, but it’s clear what Gerwig is doing here as she announces the film’s feminist value. Certainly, there’s a limitation to the perspective of Jo March. The film briefly acknowledges the Civil War that’s raging for much of the period with a self-conscious awareness. But, still Jo March’s dogged pursuit of a life for woman beyond the limits of society feels as moving and as significant now as it did when the novel was released in the 19th century. Jo’s value as a writer is her own girlishness. It’s a trite platitude that we write for the people we love, and yet in a moment where Yorick Le Saux’s camera traps Jo and her ailing sister Beth on a beach – awaiting imminent tragedy – it’s a platitude that feels honest, and moving and vivid. And that’s how this “Little Women” works. It’s building on so much that could be banal in its familiarity, and yet it ends up being its own thoughtful, specific thing.
“Little Women” is currently showing at Caribbean Cinemas Guyana and MovieTowne Guyana.
