Let's have a fangirl freakout over Greta Gerwig's LITTLE WOMEN (Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet)

Trailer is up, and it looks wonderful. Out Christmas Day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AST2-4db4ic

On board

This is the greatest cast I’ve seen for anything in ages.

this tweet still otm

I’m sorry I’m still not over the PRECISION of casting Timothee Chalamet as LAURIE, the literature character who embodies so many young people’s first experience with fuckboi heartbreak pic.twitter.com/y17mEEUcL3

— alanna bennett (@AlannaBennett) June 19, 2019

Louis Garrel!

This is the greatest cast I’ve seen for anything in ages.

― akm, Thursday, 15 August 2019 06:41 (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean the new safdies film has sandler, judd hirsch, trinidad james and mike francesa

I think this is the first time I am feeling Chalamet.

I would love to feel Chalamet

Here, have a peach...

https://media.giphy.com/media/l1J3p6CKUnZVDz6sE/giphy.gif

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi8jYH5h4XkAhULtRoKHZEfCMsQjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.imdb.com%2Ftitle%2Ftt0090993%2Fmediaviewer%2Frm1902581760&psig=AOvVaw2hSrHwLpFUMAmUCeqS0GXp&ust=1565964832240031

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTA0OGM5YWUtOTdmMi00MDA5LWFmYzEtYWVkMzc1ODVmNDYxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTgwNTk5MDU@._V1_.jpg

so compared to the 1933 Little Women...

Katherine Hepburn = Saoirse Ronan
Frances Dee = Emma Watson
Jean Parker = Eliza Scanlen
Joan Bennett = Florence Pugh

Intriguing.

Don't forget the Winona Ryder version with Christian Bale as Laurie.

A more than respectable version too.

Laurie is always cast with the It Boy of the moment (Peter Lawford in the '40s).

opening of the book:

"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.

"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.

"We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from her corner.

The juxtaposition of past and present isn't done as expertly as I expected, but, my god, has this book ever been done badly? A small masterpiece of casting, rhythm, empathy. Louis Garrel and Timothee are perfectly cast.

Excited for tomorrow.

Guess what. It’s good

Wanted to take my ten-year-old niece to this, but my sister and my mom are claiming its too mature for her (they're thinking of taking her to fucking Cats). Without an excuse to see it in theatres, it'll probably be months before I get around to it, but I'm glad to hear it's good--I'd glanced at some mixed reviews (which I won't read until I've seen the film).

Like I said, the chronological hopscotching is often frantic, but it's so damn charming.

Saoirse Ronan and Florence Pugh should be in every movie

Dude, it's definitely NOT more mature than Cats. I have seen both and LW is totally all ages and a pretty great movie for families to see during the holidays.

has this book ever been done badly?

I've never wanted to see the 1949 MGM version w/ June Allyson, Elizabeth Taylor, Margaret O'Brien and Janet Leigh. Also, they did it on TV in the '70s with Laurie Partridge and Jan Brady.

I've seen both!

you would!

10 yrs old is a perfect age for Little Women.

I thought so too.

The 1949 LW is solid.

killer cast, tons of love coming off the screen, no experience with the story prior to now and the out-of-sequence hamburger of a script didn't much help me give a damn about any of these characters
a lot of gerwig trying to have her cake and eat it to with regard to anachronistic takes on the characters outcomes but she's a very good director.

Timothee is my new crush.

too little womany

Seen more than one criticism that the film doesn’t do enough to get you invested in the characters if you’re not familiar with the story but I don’t think it’s such a sin to expect the audience to know the story already.

The scenes of the characters exploding in motion and chatter all at once feel like beautiful direction from Gerwig, to me. The heart of the movie.

I agree, and it's one of the world's best-selling novels. Get over it!

Have not yet seen ‘19 but my wife showed me ‘94 on Christmas and I was moved. Cried at Beth’s first death scare but maybe too stoned, full, and emotionally spent by the time it finally happened. Cast was uniformly great and I’m eager to see Gillian Armstrong’s other work. She seems to have an eye for Aussie talent based on her films and music videos - working early with Cate Blanchett and Nicole Kidman. Anyway, excited for the new one but would love to hear from those who love the (most recent) old one. Kirsten Dunst was a highlight for me and it was interesting to see Christian Bale and Samantha Mathis coupled before of American Psycho.

'94 little women is really good! my favorite version so far, tho i'm looking fwd to this one

I'd rank them:

1994
1933
2019
1949
1978

and 1918?

https://news.letterboxd.com/post/187019729548/ranking-little-women

I was just googling and I hadn't even heard of this pbs version from last year that has Maya Hawke playing Jo.

didn't know there was a 1978 version, but it looks about as '70s as you can get. jan brady as beth!

Professor SHATNER

There was one last year (direct to disc/streaming?) w/Lea Thompson as Marmee.

^^Not The PBS one.

I very much did not like Gabriel Byrne as the professor in the 1994 version. He seemed a thousand years old it. It felt very weird.

Byrne aged quickly, like many Irishmen.

Wiped out after seeing this today because I spent about an hour straight in tears. This was my first exposure to the story at all, I’m assuming the dialogue was significantly modernized and or was great for that without drawing attention to itself. Really impressed with how well Pugh and the girl who played Beth played the same characters seven years apart, was almost like two completely different actresses in both cases.

if you've heard any Gerwig interviews, she incorporated a number of Alcott quotes (not from the novel) into the script.

Ah that’s interesting, I didn’t read anything about the film going in

it's one of the world's best-selling novels. Get over it!

I've seen every version, and the women are archetypes more than characters. This is fine.

It’s fine if that’s what you were expecting when you went in; I was not. Given the breathless and universal praise, it seems worth noting that this is - in addition to being spectacularly acted and wonderfully filmed - a bit of a soggy morality play and occasionally boring for it.

But i suppose it does say fangirl in the title.

Seen more than one criticism that the film doesn’t do enough to get you invested in the characters if you’re not familiar with the story but I don’t think it’s such a sin to expect the audience to know the story already.

This was exactly my experience: no familiarity with the story, took about a half hour before I was really drawn in. Maybe there is a version of this movie where we are given a little more time with the individual characters before we have the (enjoyable) scenes of them talking over each other. Or maybe that doesn't work. I still thought it was a great movie and would probably enjoy the first half hour more on a rewatch

And here's our Armond!

In this way, Gerwig bests Sofia Coppola. Coppola’s Civil War remake The Beguiled was half-heartedly misandrist, so Gerwig promotes the idea that women can have it all — including a sexy, exotic husband (played by Louis Garrel, hipster cinema’s default dreamboat). While Gerwig features the flummery of period picture luxe, she misses the bold Caucasian eroticism that made Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides peculiarly compelling.

Instead, Gerwig goes for arty effects. Just as Noah Baumbach imitated Bergman and Truffaut in Marriage Story, Gerwig imitates Alain Resnais through time-shift edits connecting the publication of Jo’s first book to memories of her family’s history. She gets away with this odd sophisticated device by maintaining emphasis on feminist resentment.

March family matriarch Marmee (Laura Dern) gets the film’s thesis statement: “I’m angry really every day of my life, but for 40 years I try not to let it get the best of me.” It sounds suspiciously defensive, like Dern’s blasphemous speech in Baumbach’s Marriage Story, and syncs with both Jo and Amy asserting, “Don’t tell me marriage isn’t an economic proposition!”

5
If these pussyhat speeches weren’t bad enough, Gerwig momentarily looks beyond herself to have Marmee lecture a black hospital worker: “I spent my whole life ashamed of my country.” It’s a Michelle Obama speech to which the token black character responds: “No offense; you should still be ashamed!” Never mind those who died in the Civil War defending Emancipation, the audacity of Gerwig’s literary update is to blend cultural illiteracy with feminist blandishment. Gerwig, Baumbach, Ronan, Chalamet and Dern represent a vanguard of genuine cynicism.

thanks for the dn Armond

btw the "angry" line from Marmee is in the book

maybe AW should read it

and he got "pussyhat" into NRO.

FEminiSt rEseNTmeNt was the name of my band in 1868.

gabriel byrne is bad in everything and nearly everything he's in is also bad

https://media0.giphy.com/media/63Ijq8ylsxUEjweGLd/source.gif

fwiw he was 44 in the Gillian Armstrong version

Shatner was older in that TV mini

Louis Garrel remains absurdly hot.

corrected, they both only seemed hundreds of years older than Jo. I only know this new guy playing the professor from The Dreamers.

He’s got a good head of hair

I would love for AW to review Anne of Green Gables.

ugh, that armond white review makes me wanna like this more

FWIW I've seen many people criticize the book on exactly the same grounds that White is. That said, the book is what it is. You can utterly 100% dispense of things like this from the 'canon' or any appreciation, or you don't have to.

Just about every film adaptation improves on the book.

Saw this today & loved it so much

The jumbled up chronology was a plus for me - it was exciting to see the story reframed differently and it made the payoff with the ending very satisfying

Ronan’s Jo was great - hard to fuck up that character but she brought great fire & heart & sadness in equal measure. Pugh’s Amy was much more enjoyable & a more humanized sister, she felt like too much of a villain carciature in Dunst’s portrayal of her.

Praise the lord for Louis Garrel’s Friedrich, what a casting choice. Never fully took to Byrne in the Armstrong version, it was way too on-the-nose paternal

And Chalamet’s Teddy was perfect. So languid & mischevious & adoring.

I loved the look, the color palette was freaking gorgeous & the set decoration & costuming just downright exquisite. The beach scene looked like a Seurat painting, I died.

Speaking of dying - the moment when Jo sees Marmie & realizes Beth is gone & whole theater is deep in their feelings, some old man in the back row says loudly “SHE DIED?”
my friend & immediately started laughing like “Ffs dude catch up”

*Marmee

Ronan's handled her career so well.

Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet both perform in a way that makes me feel more alive by way of sympathy with the amount of life they bring to every movement.

beautifully put

Speaking of dying - the moment when Jo sees Marmie & realizes Beth is gone & whole theater is deep in their feelings, some old man in the back row says loudly “SHE DIED?”
my friend & immediately started laughing like “Ffs dude catch up”

― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 28 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

Well done for being one step ahead of some random lol.

Anyway watched this last night and if Garrel had any taste he would've hated her book and gone to California.

xpost oh cmon dude 95% of the audience knew she was dead!

The most depressing part of LITTLE WOMEN (1869) is not when Beth dies but when Jo's short story wins a prize of $100, reminding any fellow writers reading the book that freelance rates have remained roughly stable SINCE THE RECONSTRUCTION ERA

— Jennifer Morrow (@jenniferemorrow) December 27, 2019

sad lol

So did I! Found the comment iffy because I loathed the film, I guess.

XP best bit was the negotiations for better conditions/deal for her book in the end lol.

From that review:

"Gerwig imitates Alain Resnais through time-shift edits connecting the publication of Jo’s first book to memories of her family’s history. She gets away with this odd sophisticated device by maintaining emphasis on feminist resentment."

The time shifts are incredibly light and are pretty standard fare now - not even worth putting that reference in, and even so the technical achievement very rarely carries a film by itself.

Can't even competently hate.

only a publication as irredeemable as national review would still run a writer as vile as armond white has become

Lol aren't the "memories" at the end mostly fiction? All that golden pap simply Jo's cynical imagination? Of the last scenes only the ones in the great light of the new York publishing house are "real.'

Loved every minute of this. Of course the acting is excellent across the board, but I particularly enjoyed Pugh (a tricky role) and Dern. Though my wife and I did turn to each other after to confirm that as much as we love him as an actor, it's hard to see Bob Odenkirk in period garb and not think it's a bit.

Oh, and also, one of my daughters is struggling with a really bad cold. Her medicine wore off toward the end, so she had to dramatically stifle a sneezing fit right around when Beth died ... and it came out as this hilarious squeak that sent her, me and my other daughter into a barely contained fit of hysterics at the exact wrong time. I literally had tears running down my cheeks, but for all the wrong reasons. It took the three of us maybe two minutes to get our shit together, right as the movie hit peak sad. I felt so bad.

Dern was such a great choice for Marmee. She is so good at carrying multiple emotions & yet she has that beautiful looseness about her... she’s the best

 hard to see Bob Odenkirk in period garb and not think it's a bit.


I just now occurred to me that Odenkirk is now known to so many people who have no idea Mr. Show even existed

Another Gaze dissents

Reviewers have rushed to celebrate Gerwig’s Little Women, arguing that it shows that “dreams and ambitions can be greater and more soaring than Louisa May Alcott, trapped in the 19th century and kicking against it, could ever have hoped”. Really? As an adaptation, the film enacts few interpretive and material shifts for women. Meg stays dull, Amy irritating, and Beth dead. What does this lofty praise – so keen to find feminist value and demonstrate progress – say about the current culture of feminism? For all its modern chat and sass, Gerwig’s feminist vision is nostalgic, its structural back-and-forth rose-tinted. In Figuring the Past: Period Film and the Mannerist Aesthetic, Belén Vidal argues that period drama relishes in the “spectacle of pastness and its intricate signs” but also notes that in period film “pastness appears disconnected from the (historical) past by an aesthetic of surfaces” and this feels true of Little Women’s most spectacular scenes. In the vast New England landscapes or within the grand house of Mr. Laurence we are disconnected from History per-se and plunged into a free-floating aesthetic of association. Christmas scenes evoke Robert Frost, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House in the Big Woods and Thomas Kinkade, a non-specific, idealised past. This sense of spectacular familiarity is common to adaptation and Gerwig plays on this through visual references to Armstrong’s Little Women, re-assembling the March sisters and their mother, Marmee (Laura Dern), in the same fireside poses. Through this referencing, Gerwig takes us out of History and into a hyper-constructed past, a mise-en-abyme that links her Little Women back to Armstrong, to Alcott and to the Little Women culture industry, bringing the viewer, through its self-reflexive system of citation, into a temporal loop between past and present. This is paralytic. With an ironising retrospective gaze, Little Women falls in line with what Owen Hatherley calls the “ironic-authoritarian-consumerist dreamworld” of the nostalgia industry which simplifies, limits and depoliticises the past for easy consumption in the modern marketplace. Little Women is marketed and will likely appeal to young people – young women. It’s sad, then, that this is a version without real consistent anger, that gives occasional voice to the rage of Jo and Marmee but which wraps up their fury in a linen shawl by the close of each scene, the bright scenery and music propelling them inexorably towards happiness. Sarah Ahmed’s Killjoy Manifesto highlights the “political utility of happiness” that is used to “justify social norms and social goods”, suggesting we should celebrate the figure of the feminist killjoy who disturbs normative happiness to assert herself. Is Jo a killjoy? Was Alcott? In the original book their rage pushes against their world, but Gerwig’s character’s anger, although articulated verbally, barely builds beyond each scene, dissipating into the spectacle, given no object or oxygen to keep it alive.

In an interview with Film Comment, Gerwig describes how she took material from Alcott’s other work and added her own flourishes. A line from a different monologue that went “Women have minds, as well as just heart; ambition and talent, as well as just beauty. And I’m so sick of people saying love is all a woman is fit for” is embellished with the additional clause: But I’m so lonely. In Gerwig’s Little Women, Jo says this to her mother in a monologue following Beth’s death. For Gerwig, this was a modern tweak that served to highlight the hardships of living ahead of your time, which she links to her own feelings of loneliness as a writer – “I was alone.” Yet far from instilling a sense of sisterly solidarity across time, her tinkering injects a sense of isolation and atomisation: anger becomes sadness, individuality becomes loneliness. The opening title of Gerwig’s film is also an edited quote from Alcott, “I’ve had lots of troubles, so I write jolly tales”, taken from an entry in her diaries where she discusses novel writing with a fellow female author. The rest of the quote, cut by Gerwig, continues, “and we wondered why we each did so” – a crucial clause that reframes individual feeling as a structural cultural issue, undermining the twee naivety of the first pronouncement. Gerwig’s editing of Alcott’s writing incises the radical doubt and nuance that characterised Alcott’s approach – it is a misrepresentation, a false justification for the jollity that follows. Lauded for taking the original “to new feminist heights”, Gerwig’s Little Women in fact fails to engage with the proto-feminist spirit of the original, let alone the radical potential for which a modern adaptation might allow. Instead, the film imbricates a knowing irony, a self-aware stylisation, into the fabric of the original text, but leaves the central tropes of the novel intact. The commitment to re-shaping, rather than re-writing the narrative and ideology of the original means that Gerwig’s Little Women remains a celebration of compromise, rather than radical fulfilment.

This sense of spectacular familiarity is common to adaptation and Gerwig plays on this through visual references to Armstrong’s Little Women, re-assembling the March sisters and their mother, Marmee (Laura Dern), in the same fireside poses. Through this referencing, Gerwig takes us out of History and into a hyper-constructed past, a mise-en-abyme that links her Little Women back to Armstrong, to Alcott and to the Little Women culture industry, bringing the viewer, through its self-reflexive system of citation, into a temporal loop between past and present.

Sentences like these inspire me to write, "Whiney G. Winegarten" otm

Don't know Scanlen so didn't know she was Australian, but that means all four girls were played by not American actors, which is kind of neat.

xposts Dissents like that are so obnoxious, because at the very least the film is exceptionally well acted and directed and if not radical still very well adapted, which really is or should be enough. It's a joy, which we can always use more of, too middlebrow or whatever or not.

I think taking exception to ppl proclaiming it as a cutting edge feminist vision is fine.

Yeah I mean it seems otm, good movie tho

I'm not sure I've read any reviews, tbh. Are there many reviews that claim it's a cutting edge radical feminist film? I mean, I believe it, but I doubt it.

There's one cited in the first sentence of that quote, for starters.

Where's the quote from?

I'd say the Guardian review quoted in the first line is rather poorly written, period.

Another Gaze review is very otm. Enjoy the look, see there is nothing much beyond that too.

Really liked how it didn't even talk about the men they marry lol.

I saw an Anthony Lane piece in The New Yorker that talked about the cast. Really boring.

armond white > anthony lane

What’s less clear, however, is whether she manages to update its vision of feminism for the 21st century.

Should she?

I haven't seen this version yet but going by some of the reviews I am getting confused that it's set in the present because of lines like that ^^^.

For a lot of the country, it's still entirely a radical idea that a woman doesn't desire marriage or kids or playing caretaker for the men in the family.

I mean, how do you update an adaptation of a story from the late 1800s, set in the late 1800s, for the 21st century? Give them lasers?

Have Letters to Cleo perform on the roof of the high school.

I kind of lol'd at the Another Gaze bit that criticises the lack of consistent anger or rage in Little Women.

Jo could have been a prolific tweeter.

i am the most feminist little woman (2019) pic.twitter.com/ietTbpUAuI

— Eva Victor (@evaandheriud) August 14, 2019

this is neat

I love this detail from the Hollywood Reporter directors' roundtable. https://t.co/D54lDjml20 pic.twitter.com/S5q7l57XKG

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) December 24, 2019

Enjoy how this thread went from largely positive to discourse about whether the film is feminist enough (ffs)!

Anyway saw this and really liked it. But then I have loved the books since childhood and my original one is read to tatters, so I’m obviously not the brilliantly objective reviewer I need to be here. Saw it with one of my sisters and my mother and one of her sisters. Cinema was full of women and groups of girls. I saw all these groups of girls downstairs and thought they were going to Frozen 2; they were not.

Enjoyed the timeskips but then there are few nonlinear narratives I don’t like. Sense of the bond between the sisters is real, but I totally get people not familiar saying it seemed shallow. It’s always the difficulty with book adaptations, isn’t it? Your time to establish the characters, their world and their bonds is in minutes rather than hours.

I wasn’t mad for Ladybird so I can’t remember if the quick cuts and rapid pace are her signatures? Felt I could have done with more lingering, some of it came across as like one of those YouTube montage of a whole film in five minutes.

Superbly cast, obviously; I enjoyed the scene between Jo and Mr Laurence after Beth’s death, and Florence Pugh was just great throughout. She was so Amy it hurt, down to her ridiculous outbursts.

Saoirse was incredible, her energy holds the whole thing together when it gets a bit patchy and I really enjoyed the scene of her negotiating for her book at the end others have already mentioned.

would anyone who is not an alcott stan argue this is a better film than ladybird? i wouldn't... possibly it has a better cast, which is really really saying something!
though come to think of it i would've traded streep for metcalf six days out of seven.

LW feels to me like a passion project that will be well remembered but - i think/hope - a warm up for better original work on the way.

my takeaway from watching Little Women is that Florence Pugh is greatness

okay and Soairse almost mails it in on occasion. Emma, though serviceable, cruelly overshadowed, looks and performance

idg Timothee C

I know Gerwig was aware she was commanding a modest, unassuming project, but dammit she just plays it toooo safe

Too safe? Eh. That's like saying "not feminist enough."

FWIW, we actually had to go to a second theater because the first place we went to here in FL was sold out.

Can someone -- I write without condescension -- explain how Gerwig might've filmed a dangerous adaptation? An adaptation based on this novel?

something like a doubling down of the opening of jane campion's portrait of a lady, so as to overlay and interweave the feminisms (and other political strands, re class and race and american empire blah blah) of different, more recent eras (1920s, 1970s, now) so that they jaggedly magnify ways the ideals (and loveliness) of the original is part and parcel with bad stuff as well as nice stuff, the ways we now wd heavily judge the LWs then -- and, hardest of all probably, vice versa

Just watched this with my daughters and quietly sobbed all the way through. Thought it was wonderful tbh.

I wasn’t mad for Ladybird so I can’t remember if the quick cuts and rapid pace are her signatures?

Yeah I would say Ladybird and Frances Ha (which she wrote but didn't direct) both have this style. I found it much easier to digest in those movies because they're only focusing on one or two characters

The 19th century produced several examples of more recognizably 20th century portraits of feminism: the novels of Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre, Shirley, Vilette), her sister Anne (The Tenant of Wildfeld Hall), Wilkie Collins, and Elizabeth Gaskell, not to mention the tough, complicated female characters in George Eliot and Henry James' fiction. Little Women outsold them all because it has a sentimental core inseparable from its aesthetic merit.

I wonder if those with cavils about Gerwig's version have seen the other film adaptations? I haven't seen anyone much mention Cukor and Armstrong's versions. They have scenes that even at the time audience members recoiled from. That's Alcott's material.

something like a doubling down of the opening of jane campion's portrait of a lady, so as to overlay and interweave the feminisms (and other political strands, re class and race and american empire blah blah) of different, more recent eras (1920s, 1970s, now) so that they jaggedly magnify ways the ideals (and loveliness) of the original is part and parcel with bad stuff as well as nice stuff, the ways we now wd heavily judge the LWs then -- and, hardest of all probably, vice versa

A good point, but the framing device using Jo and Dashwood, I think, did that? The closeup of the ink-stained fingers reminded me how some things never change.

ink stained fingers flying over the keyboard

btw I would've killed for a Campion or Sciamma adaptation! Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire finds the queerness in the conventional 18 th century setting (relationship between tutor/governess/artist and pupil).

Idk, I liked how it is what it is and not trying to be within the wider context? I found Mrs March’s line to the black woman she was working with cringey as fuck, and that’s a Gerwig bit I think? Like the film makes this an observation itself later, when Jo is saying how no one wants to read domestic dramas and Amy disagrees with her.

I heard someone who’d clearly no knowledge of the story hiss “ah Jesus, the sister?!” so Alcott would be pleased to know she’s still boiling people’s piss with that choice ~150 years later.

To me, Mother March has always been the weakest link: the vessel through which a writer/director has communicated his/her "modern" POV, whether in 1933, the forties, 1994, or now; it has tripped up every actress because it's too obvious a Trojan horse for ideas about THE WAY WE LIVE NOW. Laura Dern looked particularly ill at ease because her Dern-ness accentuated what she's supposed to be doing too explicitly; plus, of course, I thought of her feminist speech in Marriage Story.

Outside my comfort zone, to say the least, but well done, and I especially loved the last 10-15 minutes. Great job of capturing the awesome excitement of your book coming to publication, and I love happy endings in general. My brief engagement with classic literature was left behind at university 40 years ago, and Little Women wasn't part of it. So I was sometimes momentarily confused by past-present transitions, and, and I know I shouldn't be, by the relation of Jo March's life to her novel's story--was the story based on her life, or was I watching some kind of framing device? Basic stuff, sorry.

I avoid almost all advance discussion of films I plan to see, so I almost fell off my chair when Bob Odenkirk showed up as the father. Not that he's not a good actor who clearly can adapt to anything, but if you know him from The Larry Sanders Show and Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul--where he basically crawled out of Sweet Smell of Success, at least as relates to the first two--it's a real surprise.

I loved this, and I loved the editing and time transitions, but...where was Odenkirk/Dad when Beth dies? I realize he's not shown in the later timeline until she introduces him returning in the past, but I'd seriously assumed he'd died in the intervening time.

He's at her funeral, so he's around but the story's not about him, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This was good! The rare new movie I can earnestly describe as "pleasant" without using it as a term to dismiss it.

i really liked this

It's the only acclaimed film of the past four or five I've seen where I'm eager to see it again.

one of them for sure. certainly of the acclaimed films of this year, except maybe Parasite.

I'd be down for a LW/Parasite crossover sequel.

Jane Eyre / Parasite really more reasonable tbh

I expected this to be fine, and it exceeded expectations, even Florence Pugh, who I hadn't remembered was the lead in Lady Macbeth.

Streep should do more of these sharply comic miniatures; she's turning into the Florence Bates of the 21st century.

Ronan should be winning some awards. I liked how GG gave her one quiet "Christopher Columbus" interjection, where Kate Hepburn's Jo bellowed it continuously.

I thought having them kill the Manson family at the end was a step too far, though.

Streep's garnered so many unearned nominations that when she finally gives a precisely comic supporting performance she's ignored.

fits in with disrespect for comedy as well

as for the complaints above, I think this version is as "dangerous" as it needs to be

Dream Team Cast:
Jo: Katherine Hepburn
Amy: Florence Pugh
Beth: Margaret O’Brien
Meg: Trini Alvarado
Laurie: Chalemet
Marmie: Mary Astor
Aunt Marsh: Lucile Watson
Freidrich: Paul Lukas
Mr Laurence: Sir C Aubrey Smith

Best house goes to 49.
Gerwig as director.
33 script.

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) January 26, 2020

I see Astor as Aunt Marsh tho

but she played Marmee in the '49 version (writing in her autobio "What was I doing there?"). He's not free-associating, he's picking all-stars.

i left the movie thinking it was of such little consequence. But now I remember that I really did enjoy the experience, and never once did it bog down to the point that I wished I was somewhere else or was checking my watch, and that is SO rare for me. I guess that means I liked it and it was good.(?)

Chalamet-Hepburn chemistry would be incredible

Chalamet-me chemistry, that’s what I want to see

can't spell chalamet without me

little women cast photographed with 1860 techniques this is the best thing i’ve ever seen pic.twitter.com/viPC2l7Z0q

— alice (@grangershug) February 2, 2020

i thought this movie was sooooooooooo charming, as someone unfamiliar with the text and prior adaptations

I loved it! Although i thought the time-frame jumps may give me a heart failure.

Loved it. Thought it was very “adult” ultimately, like a lot of great children’s media.

Some of the later sequences focusing on jo around beth’s death were very haunting and felt really contemporary in their depiction of loss and bewilderment

I looked at AO Scott's review again and he actually says Chalamet seems "more like a fifth March sister or an untrained puppy" than a love interest. lmfao & otm

to paraphrase a letterboxd comment i read the other day, laurie's a little woman

well less so when he's Christian Bale

mmmm Chalamet and young Bale

an ideal hetero couple

took my daughter to this last night, loved it. The undercutting of the romantic climax with the conversation with the publisher probably the most audacious touch. Cast was uniformly great, Pugh the standout imo

I mean, how do you update an adaptation of a story from the late 1800s, set in the late 1800s, for the 21st century? Give them lasers?

when Friedrich sits down at the piano toward the end, I half-expected him to play some cheeky 20thC pop piece, maybe a Tori Amos song lol

(granted that would've been p jarring)

I thought this was exquisite. I love Ronan and Chalamet's charisma is off the scale. It's worth mentioning, just because I haven't seen anyone else mention it, that Chris Cooper's performance as Mr. Lawrence is very moving.

Came in completeley unfamiliar to the story, previous versions. A few tonal bumps at the beginning I thought but a gorgeous film. Ronan is tremendous.

omg, I had no idea that was Chris Cooper!!

really liked this, super charming; i also never read the book or saw other versions, i can easily see why its a beloved story

gerwig imbues it w a lot of great, fun flourishes that really shine --ie pugh reacts to laurie's advances w/ "ive loved you my whole life" >> scene ends & we jump back 2 pugh as a younger teen making a mold of her foot to remind laurie how petite it is lmao

i enjoyed this when i was watching it but it has felt shallower and more cloying in my memory

Never trust memory.

This should’ve whupped Parasite’s ass except the Academy has snob beef with happy endings

they were both great imo, either would have been a worthy pick

I just feel like I’ll probably watch this several more times and I’ve seen Parasite exactly enough

A ton of recent winners had happy endings

Great work from everyone in the cast and handsome production design, but the shuffled narrative didn't always work for me. Gerwig seemed to want to rush through many of the key earlier scenes from the novel just to get them out of the way (really, this is an adaptation of Book 2, if you follow the original publication history). Still, I can't say I didn't enjoy the experience of watching it.

I'm making a mold of my foot for laurie to remind him I have nice feet

lmao yes

Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet both perform in a way that makes me feel more alive by way of sympathy with the amount of life they bring to every movement.

― Swilling Ambergris, Esq. (silby), Saturday, December 28, 2019 12:58 AM

qftw

this already feels like a seasonal classic

"i hope he comes back, he would make a terrific friend for me"

My daughters (9 and 11) quote from this all the time and have nerded out on all the shot-by-shot cast analysis. Their fave is "There's also a lovely greenhouse!" (Tumbleweed)

Noah Baumbach's Little Men coming to Prime in 2022

what would be won or lost here if this was re-cut to be played out linearly? I actually ask because I was watching it with my mother, who loved the book as a child, but she was clearly confused and therefore didn't enjoy it. She's 85 though and often struggles with flashbacks etc. in film. She doesn't have alzheimers or anything related but I do wish I could watch a linear version of this with my mother. Ofc this is just me, I'm not saying it shouldn't have been made this way.

Chris Cooper is the absolute jewel in this version. I cried during a few of his scenes.

Perfect to re-watch this after The Shop Around the Corner.

rewatched tonight & introduced Mr Veg to the wonderful world of the Marchs

mr veg liked it a good deal! i knew he would because it is charming af

and I am so still deeply in love with it that i may watch it again tomorrow

also will go to cvs tomorrow to find a box hairdye similar to jo’s hair in the movie because i crave disappointment lol

chalamet is so 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

I have just watched this, wrapped in a blanket, it is a literal comfort blanket film for me. Saoirse’s eyes after Beth dies! The way Pugh throws the popcorn when the dad comes back! That heartbreaking scene where Laurie told Jo he married Amy!

Ah, it’s so great still. I think I will be watching this one for many years to come. And Chris Cooper is such a great Mar Laurence.

My only complaint is that Bob Odenkirk was a real weird choice for the dad. Chris Cooper was indeed great though.

I am rereading the book after many decades

my mental pictures for the characters are a mashup of the Gillian Jacobs & Greta Gerwig movies - this is how it breaks down in my imagination currently

Winona Ryder = Jo
wotsername Hermione = Meg
Claire Danes = Beth
Florence Pugh = Amy (but sometimes Kirsten Dunst ie when Jo cuts her hair & Amy gasps YOUR ONE BEAUTY I always hear in Dunst’s voice)
Susan Sarandon = Marmee
Odenkirk = Father
Timotheeeee = Teddy/Laurie
Cooper = Mr Laurence
Louis Garrel - Friedrich but only bc i am happier picturing him being hot instead of crusty

and the reason I think i picture Odenkirk is not his look but his voice? i hear Bob’s gravelly voice in the words of father. i think the casting does work but we just dont get many scenes w him unfortunately. if there was more of him, like the long scene in the book where he tells the girls what they mean to him & how theyve grown i think it would make more sense & it IS legit weird seeing him in the movie no argumenr

My only complaint is that Bob Odenkirk was a real weird choice for the dad. Chris Cooper was indeed great though.

oh i thought the reason for the bump here was the "lou alcott was a trans man" viral thread

"LOL it's Bob Odenkirk!" did take me out of the movie but it was such a rush that I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Do we have high hopes for the Barbie movie?

oh i thought the reason for the bump here was the "lou alcott was a trans man" viral thread

― Kate (rushomancy), Sunday, May 1, 2022 2:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hate this thread, nice as it seems, made by a chronic internet charlatan

lol when jo reveals she cut off her hair and everyone gasps and amy says "your one beauty!"

my favorite line