Tuesday 21 January 2020

Little Women (2020) - Movie Review



Time to continue with the reheated leftovers of the previous year, consisting mainly of what wasn’t good enough to be released in 2019 (hello, Dolittle) and the remainder of the Oscar nominations that didn’t fit the schedule, and we’re dealing with a legacy remake. I get the feeling that, if not reading the original classic source material, I should have at least glanced at the book’s previous adaptations. However, since there’s six pre-existing films based on this work, one of which done by PureFlix, I don’t particularly feel the need to overplay the story for myself under the pretence of doing research for the new one. I want to give this its fair chance, and after Greta Gerwig’s last success with Lady Bird, I’m more than comfortable with letting this stand on its own. Tl;dr Don’t expect any adaptation comparisons; this is strictly about this version on its own.

I would like to start off by extending a gracious hand to casting directors Kathy Driscoll and Francine Maisler because I couldn’t come up with a more perfect collection of actors if I tried. Saoirse Ronan as the ambitious writer, Florence Pugh as the rather icy painter, Emma Watson as the budding actress, and Aussie up-and-comer Eliza Scanlen as the loner pianist; not only do they all fill their roles with the kind of natural breeziness that I’ve come to expect from Gerwig’s direction, their interplay is aggressively watchable. If the script stripped out literally everything that isn’t these sisters chatting and arguing with each other, this film still would’ve coasted by just fine for a little over two hours on their performances alone. Add to that Laura Dern as their mother, Timothée Chalamet as the token guy/revolving-door love interest, and Meryl Streep as all things depressively spinster, and you’ve got an amazing dramatic bedrock.

Gerwig’s relationship with Noah Baumbach definitely seems to be rubbing off on her, as she seems to be taking a page out of his book in her depiction of a family with various artistic aspirations. The way it manifests through the individual characters keeps things fresh throughout, but the finer points regarding art and its effect on people certainly warmed their way to my metatext-obsessed heart.

With Ronan’s Jo, her fiery drive to make it in a male-dominated industry packs just the right amount of righteousness, and when Louis Garrel’s professor critiques her work, we basically get the encapsulation of how humourous, how frustrating and how kinda-sorta depressing it is to have someone be bluntly honest about what they think regarding art. When you put your heart and soul into something you care about, even the best-intentioned criticism can feel like knives in the back.

With Pugh’s Amy, we get a Jan Brady situation, as her own ambition not only towers over even that of Jo’s, but the reason for its stature is down to a bit of sibling rivalry and jealousy. Add to that how her personal frustrations with her art bring her to the point of wanting to throw it all in, and it makes even her more callous actions still feel real (if not entirely defensible). The green-eyed monster can make even genuine success feel underwhelming, especially when you set your expectations only against what everyone else should want from you.

With Watson’s Meg, the source material’s antiquity peeks through a little bit, as she is the first to pass on her theatrical goals in place of starting a family. It occasionally rubs against the grain of the rather Jo-centric framing of the story overall, but it ends up revealing something quite potent in the process. Jo’s big speech is in regards to how love shouldn’t be all that a woman is fit for… but just because it shouldn’t take up the entirety of one’s raison d’etre doesn’t mean it should be absent from it altogether. Maybe one’s role to play in life needn’t be something so literal, so long as it fills the heart with the joy it needs.

And with Scanlen’s Beth, we have a purely personal perspective. Scanlen’s performance might actually be the best of everyone here, purely on how much she is able to convey while technically saying the least of the four sisters. And that, in essence, is her character: Quiet that says all that is needed. Aside from her more tragic position in the larger story, her sitting at the piano (and her rather cute worrying about not disturbing anyone else in the process of playing, which I relate to so damn hard it actually hurts a little) provides a needed insular dimension to the film’s musings about art. Making art purely for one’s self, rather than needing to appease everyone else, can often be the most satisfying way a person can create.

Apologies for potentially turning this into cinematic CliffNotes, but as I’ve demonstrated in past reviews, I really am a sucker for art that comments on the nature of art. And even beyond that, between the almost-scorching warmth of Yorick Le Saux’s flashback visuals, the nimble way Gerwig’s scripting handles the romantic aspects, and the stunning chemistry between the actors, there are baskets-full of reasons to like this thing. It may not be as stealthily emotional as Lady Bird, and there are still some teething problems with the attempts at progressivism in this period story, but that doesn’t make this film’s beating heart any less impactful.

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