Little Women

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🎙️ EPISODE 655: 03.01.23 Umm, LADIES? MAKE SOME NOISE! On the first day of Women's History Month, I wanted to review a movie that had "women" in the title. This is a dumb thing I do from time to time. And better yet, what if said movie was made BY WOMEN, FOR WOMEN. Oh yeah, now we're cooking! I am WOMAN hear my podcast! (And read my review, which, umm, yeah, I guess you're doing that right now. I'm flailing here, I realize; just gonna end this parentheses and move on.) So this is a shitty movie. I swear I didn't go into this with any bad intentions. I had an open mind! (I think?) I have no relationship to the book, which — at a whopping 759 pages — is already a tough proposition for a 135-minute long film. There was obviously a lot of ground to cover. The main issue isn't so much that certain storylines aren't flushed out, but in the general manner in which Lady Bird (a near-perfect movie, btw) director Greta Gerwig attempted to stitch it all together.

Told non-linearly, Little Women might be the best example for why one should not try to tell a story non-linearly. We jump around in time so much (and so quickly) that even the dude from Quantum Leap is like "SLOW DOWN ALREADY!" Eschewing the linear narrative has to be done for a purpose, and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the purpose was here. The material just doesn't seem to warrant a structure like this. If you're doing it simply because it seems 'artsy' then that is a really bad reason! But still, this is a star-studded cast and with a murderer's row including Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson, Laura Dern and Meryl Streep (this movie has sure got the WOMEN and I wouldn't describe them as LITTLE for one second), well, it's not gonna be all bad. (Also the great Bob Odenkirk is responsible for not one, but TWO title drops!)

In addition to being a mess structurally, the actual content rubbed me the wrong way. Are all the thematic elements — about race (CRT: Civil War Style), about the economic realities facing women in that era, etc. etc. — spelled out so clearly in the book? There are so many times where the dialogue plainly states the quasi-political messaging. I can't imagine that's in the book but what do I know. It felt kind of insulting to the audience to present it like this, as if we wouldn't get it from the plot.

And in the end, all the girls (except the dead one) get married anyway. Jo (Ronan) publishes her book but makes sure to keep the copyright. Because that's the most important message of the movie: Little Women, Barbie, whatever... I.P. is the greatest reward a girl could ever get.

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 654 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 656 ⫸

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Little Women is a 2019 American coming-of-age period drama film written and directed by Greta Gerwig. It is the seventh film adaptation of the 1868 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott. It chronicles the lives of the March sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy—in Concord, Massachusetts, during the nineteenth century. It stars an ensemble cast consisting of Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Meryl Streep, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, and Chris Cooper. It was released on December 7, 2019.