I'm surprised to find myself writing a long post about the recent Little Women movie because I'm a casual fan of the book at best. (My grandmother is a much bigger fan so I'm sort of attached to the story because of her though I've never read the whole thing through.) But I did want to write some about it and I find I can't do it without comparing it to the independent movie that set the story in modern day which came out the year before. Both were released roughly around the book's anniversary. Both tell the story in a nonlinear way, intercutting the second half, in which the characters are adults, with flashbacks of the first half, in which they're teens. (Not being a huge fan of the book, I'm tempted to say they did that because the "adult" half isn't as fun as the "teen" half and they were worried people would get bored halfway through if they told the story chronologically.
) Both of them put more emphasis on Jo's being an author, ending with her writing a book, which is all but said to be Little Women, and it getting published.
Both of them also portray Jo as being somewhat upset about Amy and Laurie's romance, the 2019 movie much more so. (In the book, she was happy that this got Laurie out of her hair.) If I were a bigger fan of the book, I'd be a bit annoyed by this change. Being a casual fan, I think it works to show Jo's character development. (She's now much better at controlling her emotions for the sake others than she was in her youth.)
Without having done a marathon of Little Women movies, I can say that the 2019 movie has probably the best script of all the ones I remember. But it doesn't have the best cast, especially not the best cast for the "little women" themselves. Saoirse Ronan is a fine actress but she really doesn't strike me as the Jo type. Florence Pugh is great as the adult Amy but when she has to play a kid, it's really obvious that she's not a kid and the character comes across like she has a mental disability.
Eliza Scanlen makes very little impression. I know her character is supposed to be quiet and retiring but I've seen other actresses play this character and characters like her to much more memorable effect. The only heroine whom I thought was really cast well was Emma Watson's Meg.
Like I said though, the script was really good. The only major thing that I can't make up my mind if liked is the ending.
From what I've read Louisa May Alcott originally envisioned the character of Jo, like herself, living out life as a literary spinster but was forced to give her a romantic relationship to keep her book marketable. This movie wanted to pay tribute to Alcott's original vision but it didn't want to totally cut Jo's romance with Prof. Bhaer. The whole Jo-writes-a-book-at-the-end-which-is-obviously-Little-Women thing and the nonlinear storytelling allowed them to make a compromise. We see Jo and the professor end up together but it's implied that this the marketable ending Jo writes for her book. As someone who can sympathize with both Alcott, for not wanting to include romance just to make a story marketable, and fans, who don't want a completely revisionist ending, I appreciate what the movie was going for.
But here's the thing. Jo may have been a lot like her author but she wasn't her author. When Louisa May Alcott had to get Jo married, she included setup to make it clear that Jo wanted to get married. And the movie doesn't cut any of that setup. If anything, it makes it more dramatic. So we're not sure that Jo is happy at the end. Not that I have a problem with ambiguous endings per se. But everything up till this point of the movie has been pretty unambiguous. While the flashbacks are somewhat color saturated, implying they're touched with nostalgia, there's nothing to indicate the events in them have been inaccurate. The movie's spent all this time getting us invested in the characters and their lives. Now it abruptly tells us that their lives are a combination of wish fulfillment and commercial calculation. It's jarring and I'm not sure how we're expected to react.
It's a credit to the script that, given all that, I don't wish they hadn't used this device. It definitely makes the climax more creative and interesting. It's fun the way the movie pauses itself to internally debate sending the right message vs pleasing a big part of the target audience. I really wish I could say I liked this ending instead of just appreciating it or understanding it.
Something that I admire about the 2019 movie though, and which I think fans of the book will appreciate even more, is that it tries to give an equal focus to all the sisters. In the "adult" half of most adaptations I remember, Meg, Beth and Amy fade into the background and the story becomes pretty much the Jo Show. While Jo is definitely the main character of the 2019 movie, you can tell the director/writer didn't want to lose focus on the other characters.
The same can't be said of the 2018 movie. But what I can say of it, is that all four of the main actresses are really well cast. I think Sarah Davenport is the best Jo I've seen. (Yeah, she's too pretty but that's true of all the actresses who've played the part.) This adaptation may be set in the wrong time period, but I think it captures the most popular character's personality perfectly: blustery, brusque, fun to be around, bit of a temper, no nonsense.
And remember what I said about other actresses making Beth more memorable than she is in the 2019 movie? Well, Allie Jennings is a great example of one of those actresses.
While both movies do a great job making Beth's death sad, this one does it the best.
As a homeschooler myself, I appreciated this movie's sympathetic and uncondescending portrayal of it. In fact, it's kind of a pro-homeschool fantasy. The only characters outside the home are only portrayed positively if, like the Laurences, they're willing to adapt themselves to the Marches rather than getting the Marches to adapt to the outside world, like the Moffats. (Before you dismiss this movie as a piece of homeschooling propaganda, let me assure you it isn't. It's just being true to the source material.) This is true of the 2019 movie too but there the filmmakers feel the need to apologize for it by placing it in a historical context.
Now that's not to say I liked everything about the 2018 movie. The screenwriters wanted to reference the same books that the book referenced, The Pilgrim's Progress and The Pickwick Papers. But they apparently couldn't be bothered to read either of those books themselves. I can sympathize with that since I'm not much of a fan of either (though I'm a big Dickens fan in general.) But I couldn't help cringing at the mistakes they made. They confused Apollyon, a bad guy from Pilgrim's Progress, with another character who was a good guy. And they portrayed the members of the Pickwick Club as army guys when they were supposed to be more like sociologists.
Seriously! A glance at Wikipedia would have cleared up these misconceptions.
Anyway, Prof. Bhaer's characterization is pretty different in both movies from how he is in the book. So if you're a big fan of him from there, neither of these adaptations is going to be your favorite. As a neutral party, I'd say I prefer him in the 2018 movie which gives him more dialogue with Jo. In the 2019 movie, the only really long dialogue scene they have by themselves turns into an argument about him criticizing her writing. In the book, from what I remember, he disapproves of its sensational violence. This idea is implied in the movie too but it's not explained very well. I can definitely understand that since for a Hollywood movie to criticize sensationalism and violence would be the height of hypocrisy but it makes the ensuing argument kind of vague and hard to get invested in.
So, while it didn't get any Oscar nods and you've probably never heard of it, I consider the 2018 Little Women movie to be the better movie of the two and, in that sense, the better adaptation. Both movies are super cute though and if they're the kind of thing you enjoy, I recommend the both of them to you.
For better or worse-for who knows what may unfold from a chrysalis?-hope was left behind.
-The God Beneath the Sea by Leon Garfield & Edward Blishen