I hadn’t really been looking forward to Little Women. I didn’t love the book, nor the other four film versions, nor the innumerable times it’s been adapted for telly. Even more sacrilegiously, I didn’t much like Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig’s previous Saoirse Ronan/Timothée Chalamet love-in. My Chalamet allergy, kept in abeyance at that stage by his scant airtime, has considerably worsened in the two years since.
Plus, I’m a bit iffy on films that appear to co-opt a post-MeToo manifesto for a period tale. Hence my reticence. And, perhaps, my evangelistic zeal after the screening.
Because Little Women is an absolute gem. An instant five-star classic you’d be delighted to rewatch, in any company (elderly relative, small tot, total hipster – all would enjoy). It’s the definition of a festive spirit-raiser: funny and vivacious and moving, and so smart you’re happy to submit to outrageous button-pushing.
This is a film which is busy in the best way. Scenes fall over themselves with chatter; generally, of course, from the March sisters – Jo (Ronan), Meg (Emma Watson), Beth (Eliza Scanlen) and Amy (Florence Pugh). All the actors are terrific, with Ronan and Pugh standouts. Laura Dern is a balm as Marmie and Meryl Streep muzzles just enough of her camp as Aunt March. Chalamet is an ebullient, nervy Laurie, with Chris Cooper swaddled in beard and tough love as his grandfather and James Norton kindly as his Meg-smitten tutor. There’s a cute cameo, too, for Tracy Letts (who plays the dad in Lady Bird) as Jo’s crass publisher.
Gerwig’s big innovation, other than some post-feminist self-authorship revisionism – which doesn’t feel nearly so grisly as that description suggests – is to shuffle the timeline. We start with Jo trying to flog stories in New York, then flit back and forth between present day and various stages of flashback.
Given that most people will be going in knowing the two big twists (who dies, who turns down who), it’s only sensible. It also freshens the whole thing up. You’re never quite sure of what happens next, and Gerwig proves an innovative editor – there are great trims and terrific jumps, too. This is a film forever in an ecstatic rush.
As for Chalamet? Luckily, Gerwig gives full rein to the horror of latter-day Laurie, burning through his cash and getting bratty and unattractive, which means his casting worked, for me at least, an absolute treat.
