Film: Little Women

If this wasn’t my most read book, I’d have no idea what was going on here. The timeline jumps about all over the place. The film still centres around Jo, the writer who is narrating her story about growing up with her three sisters and I still get on with her best.

Post-school, when I didn’t need to read books any more, Louisa M Alcott’s classic was the one book I would read every year in the run-up to Christmas but I haven’t read it for years. Ironic, since I became an avid reader 12 years ago. So some of this felt a little fresh and I don’t remember Amy wanting to become an artist or Meg wanting to be an actor although I do remember Beth being ill. Amy seems much crueller in 2019 and comes across as a spoilt brat. She does utter the line marriage is an economical proposition which is repeated at least once more by Jo. So the film does a good job of bringing up the issue of why women had to marry due to being unable to earn their own money. Unless they were very poor one would assume. 

On this note, the sisters constantly complaining about being poor while living in comfort in their big house and home help is not something that irritated me when reading my beloved book. They are of course comparing themselves to the Lawrences, their uber-rich neighbours in the ‘big house’.

Apart from the timeline jumps, very little was made of Jo cutting her hair to raise money while their father is serving in the war and yet this made a huge impact on me. On reflection, perhaps hair isn’t as important as it was in the 1860s.

‘No one makes her own way in the world’ - Meryl Streep' seems to have reprised her role in Julie and Julia to play the March’s wealthy aunt albeit with the funniest lines. I recognise the film doesn’t have to be a direct adaptation and often it is not. But it can still irritate me.

5½/10