Gerwig’s command on “Little Women” doesn’t stop at her ease with this configuration.
Knowing what the girls are destined to informs our gaze into their adolescent years and similarly, witnessing their youthful struggles amplifies the immediacy in which we engage with the ladies’ future selves. In that, a turned down marriage proposal, a romantic affection that brews in secret, divergences in class, a sisterly rivalry and a devastating illness lurking in the corner all receive their proper due within Gerwig’s adventurous but disciplined assembly.
With well-considered shuffles between timelines edited by Nick Houy, Gerwig caringly feeds the clan’s Massachusetts history to the viewer in increments. Completing the picture is Emma Watson’s Meg-the headstrong, clothes-conscious sister who sets aside her monetary temptations and marries for love regardless of financial considerations-, the lesser-known Eliza Scanlen’s shy but talented pianist Beth, Laura Dern’s loving, sacrificing Marmee, as well as Meryl Streep’s feisty and practical-minded Aunt March. The future also gives us a glimpse of the artistically inclined, Europe-touring Amy ( Florence Pugh, Ronan’s match as a force of nature) and her chance encounter with the Marches’ beloved ex-neighbor Laurie, expressively played by a feather-light, floppy-haired Timothée Chalamet, among everyone’s favorite young crushes with his soulful depth and sharp-edged cheekbones. And she has also met her harshest (but most honest) critic-the quietly charismatic Professor Bhaer ( Louis Garrel), Jo’s intellectual equal she is destined to fall in love with later. In these early moments, she has a vibrant spring in her step, despite already having heard a “no” (or, a “yes” with conditions) from an editor ( Tracy Letts, as fatherly and charmingly sarcastic as he was in “Lady Bird”) who instructs her to give her female characters the conventional happy ending of marriage. When we meet the strong-minded, career-focused tomboy, Jo is already seven years into the future-not residing in “New Hampshire where writers live in the woods,” but at a boarding house in New York, pursuing her dreams to become a novelist. Reuniting with Gerwig after their Sacramento-set outing, the inimitable Saoirse Ronan of “ Brooklyn” (among the greatest actors of her generation) plays the rebellious and ever-energetic Jo, an Alcott surrogate of sorts. It is a smart twist for “Little Women” loyalists as much as an inventive way-in for first-timers.Īnd the essence of the March Sisters Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth is still very much in tact, with the siblings’ hearts and souls preserved in the right place. Her structure of well-paced flashbacks, laced with emotional peaks and soothing cadences, is first a surprising puzzle and then a source of awe, but never disrespectful to Alcott’s intentions. In doing that, Gerwig taps into a radical proposition-she unearths a reflective sense of memory and nostalgia within the conversation she fosters between the film’s two timelines. Here (and there will be spoilers ahead), the filmmaker generously pours her signature buoyancy into a novel she clearly knows inside and out, infusing the yarn with the lived-in intimacy of “Lady Bird” and the womanly resilience and camaraderie that defines much of “ Frances Ha.” Moreover, she successfully turns the authority she has over the book into gold, orchestrating the tale’s segments both melodically and in a non-linear fashion. But it also shouldn’t come as a surprise, should it? In truth, Gerwig has always possessed a distinct auteurial stamp in her artistic expression a disarming uniqueness she shined through in mumblecores and Noah Baumbach collaborations alike, that predates even her semi-autobiographical directorial debut.
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Considering the text’s countless iterations as TV series, stage productions and feature films-including a pair of silent-era editions, 1933’s magnificent Katherine Hepburn-starrer by George Cukor and Gillian Armstrong’s excellent 1994 version (Gerwig’s film is easily on par with those latter gold-standard two)- that noticeable freshness of this new “Little Women” is no small feat.
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