Movie Review: Little Women pt. 1

Here's my second review. By the way, this is the 2019 version.

Little Women (2019)

Directed by Greta Gerwig

5/10

This movie is adapted from the novel, Little Women, and is about four sisters with different personalities and dreams who live in a time where women are treated unfairly in society. I think it was an appropriate time to release a movie like this where there are so many more movies and books with female superheroes and brave, courageous women than before.

Being directed by Greta Gerwig who has also directed Lady Bird (which has been nominated for quite a lot of awards), I was expecting quite a lot from this movie. But actually, I thought it was rather dull and boring for a movie with such praise.

I think the main reason for this was its lack of plot. This movie simply presented the lives of the four women, without much development of story and character. (For example, the romances were all very sudden.) Due to this, unlike movies like Jojo Rabbit, it was hard to get attached to the characters, and wasn’t able to feel much emotion when it came to unfortunate deaths like Beth’s. Possibly the reason for this lack of story was the confusing, continuous back and forth of the past and present, which I think was intended for a particular reason or to serve as a way of showing the director’s ‘message’, but backfired. And yes, it was a very interesting and creative part of the movie, especially because of the change in tone in the past and present, with parallel scenes. (Shown most clearly in the two cuts where in the past, Jo wakes up in a chair and goes down the stairs where Beth awaits, recovered from her sickness, and in the present where the same happens, but Beth does not recover but meets a tragic fate.) The past, expressing the four girls’ childhood was mostly bright, and rather hopeful. The present on the other hand was rather gloomy, and ‘realistic’. My first opinion of this was that it was trying to show how all women have amazing ambitions and dreams in childhood, but face the hardships in reality as they grow up and step into society. But this doesn’t seem right, because all of the girls marry in the end happily and willingly, and mostly don’t give up on their dreams. (It’s obvious to say that Jo, the main character, succeeds in fulfilling hers, as she publishes her book in the end.) For some like Meg, or Amanda it was their dream to marry someone they loved.

Stay tuned for part 2!