In the 1994 film version of Little Women, there is a scene in which handsome Laurie (Christian Bale) tries to persuade his childhood friend Jo (Winona Ryder) that they're destined to be together. In aid of this, he grasps the winsome Winona to his bosom and gives her a long and passionate kiss. As he draws back, a trail of thick, dribbly saliva links the two momentarily before breaking and being brushed away by the back of Bale's hand.
When I first saw it, it was like no kiss I had seen on the screen before (I'd only just graduated from being the age when you shut your eyes and retch every time anyone even got close to locking lips). For it was not the sanitised tongueless lip cinch of a black-and-white classic, or the neat snog of PG fodder. This was my first exposure to a real adult smooch – in all its glorious, dripping, messy clumsiness.
The kiss made a deep impression on me for two reasons. Firstly because I was exactly the right age to fall deeply in love with Laurie – and accordingly, I did. In fact, I found it inexplicable at the time that Jo could possibly bring herself to refuse him in favour of the mature Professor Bhaer (Gabriel Byrne). Rewatching it now, it would seem inexplicable to me if she hadn't. I do believe, however, that my early love of Bale is why, to this day, I cannot bring myself to watch American Psycho. It would seem, somehow, sacrilegious.
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The second reason is this: there's a tendency to dismiss classic Victorian children's novels as trite and moralistic, and that tendency is increased threefold when they're adapted for film. Little Women – which I maintain is one of the best films of all time – has been victim to this. Forget Vertigo, Sight & Sound magazine! By sheer force of humanity, Little Women outdoes Hitch in a stroke.
Even so, whenever I profess my love for Little Women I feel like I'm making a confession. Friends raise their eyebrows. Isn't it just a load of schmaltz, only fit for Christmas? To which I reference the early feminist radicalism of the book on which it is based, point to the calibre of the cast, rant about the edginess of the scripting, make mention of its lack of sentimentality. And then comes my killer argument, the clincher: look to the kiss I say, look to that long, drippy kiss. If the film was merely pretty-pretty and saccharine, why all the saliva?
More from the Why I Love … series
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