Little Women (2019)

Girls have to go out into the world and make up their own minds about things.

There was no one better for another Little Women film adaptation than Greta Gerwig. Gerwig sees the world in color, not in black and white, and that’s why she’s so good at tackling films like Lady Bird, Barbie, and the 2019 adaptation of Little Women that I’m writing about this week. She reads between the lines instead of leaning too far into “girl boss” or “soft girl” because she knows the world is more complex than the boxes we try to fit everything into. This is presented best through the way Gerwig portrayed Jo and Meg March. The film is also visually stunning. Yorick Le Saux’s cinematography is breathtaking, and the film utilizes lighting and color grading with grace, especially when differentiating between time periods.

This is the strongest during the scene when Jo learns Beth has passed away. There’s a brilliant parallel between a scene where Jo comes downstairs on Christmas morning to see Beth sitting at the kitchen table, feeling much healthier, and the scene when Jo learns Beth has died. The first scene is warm, appearing almost golden. When Beth dies, Jo follows the same route from her bedroom to the kitchen as she did in the Christmas scene, but this time, everything feels cool. The colors on the screen are dull and blue, indicating that Jo won’t find Beth at the table this time. Instead, her mother, Marmee, is alone and crying.

“We could never have loved the Earth so well if we had had no childhood in it,”-Jo March, Little Women.

Since Little Women jumps around a lot with its timeline, it can get confusing. However, the filmmakers did a brilliant job differentiating between childhood and adulthood. Often, the childhood scenes appear a lot more vibrant than the present day, showcasing how adulthood can sometimes be dreary, lacking the enthusiasm life has when viewed through the eyes of children. However, it’s also the phenomenal work of the actors, most prominently Florence Pugh as Amy March, who masterly switched back and forth between a more mature and more juvenile personality. Most importantly, it’s the way Greta Gerwig brought the characters to life on screen that resonated the most with audiences.

Jo

Little Women. 2019. Sony Pictures.

Jo is the March sister I resonate with the most and the one I’ve seen a majority of fans of the film resonate with. Jo is the writer, so of course, I would see myself in her. However, Jo is also the one who goes against the grain, questions things like the expectations put on women in the 1800s, and refuses to conform. Jo is more interested in building a writing career than in finding a wealthy suitor like her sisters. While we’re living in a vastly different society today than the March sisters lived in, I still believe people find it unusual in modern times for women to not long for romantic relationships but to prioritize their dreams instead. The reason so many people love Jo is because Little Women celebrates her instead of ostracizing her for being different.

As Jo goes through the world on her own terms, even cutting off her hair to sell it for money (she later cries about it, but the point is it was an act of rebellion as much as a way to make money for her family), she struggles to understand why her sisters don’t want the same things as she does. When Meg chooses to marry John Brooke, Jo tries to convince her that they should run away together instead and that Meg can pursue an acting career. However, it’s Jo who wants Meg to be an actress more than Meg ever wanted to be one herself.  Here is where Gerwig breaks through black-and-white thinking.

“No one will forget, Jo March,”-Jo March, Little Women.”

In society, the pendulum is always swinging. We spent most of the 2010s in the girl-boss mentality–the company Girlboss Media was even founded in 2017. However, the 2020s have seen a lot of women falling into the "tradwife" category, which has come with much criticism. Little Women is the product of not landing on either side but seeing things for what they really are. Some people–like Jo–find thrill and excitement in their careers and their passions. Others crave romance and dream of starting families. Neither is right or wrong; they simply are. Where we go wrong in society is when we start policing people about their personal choices instead of realizing the power lies in the freedom to choose.

While Meg goes on to marry and start a family with John, Jo confesses she'd rather be a spinster than get married. One of my favorite quotes from her is this: "I don't believe I will ever marry. I'm happy as I am and love my liberty too well to be in any hurry to give it up." This is quite controversial, depending on your views of marriage. Marriage can be a beautiful thing, but it can also be a prison. Gerwig is in a happy marriage herself with fellow screenwriter Noah Baumbach, with whom she co-wrote the Barbie screenplay, but she's able to step into Jo's shoes and see through her perspective as well. In one of my favorite songs off of Taylor Swift's The Tortured Poet's Department: The Anthology, "I Hate It Here," she sings about the 1830s and women being married off for the highest bid. 

“Just because my dreams are different than yours, it doesn't mean they're unimportant,”-Meg March, Little Women.

Historically, marriage was a legal contract in which ownership of women was transferred from father to husband, which is why fathers “give their daughters away” during wedding ceremonies and why women often take their husbands' last names. From this perspective, I think you’d be lying if you said you don’t understand Jo’s reluctance to marry. At the same time, if Jo were to see things through Meg’s perspective, she’d be lying if she said she couldn’t understand her. However, later, in what may be the most powerful scene in the film, Jo contemplates her decision not to get married. What Jo says has become one of the most discussed and admired quotes of Little Women because it so effortlessly puts into words what a lot of women feel.

“Women. They have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they’ve got ambition. And they’ve got talent as well as just beauty. And I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it. But I’m so lonely.”

Jo grapples with the complexities of her choice. She doesn’t want to be married or follow the norm, and she’s fed up with the expectations that are being put upon her. However, one of the many truths of life is sometimes, going down the road less traveled can be incredibly lonely. As human beings, we crave love and affection naturally, so it makes sense that Jo feels the way she does. However, ultimately, she knows she would have been unhappy had she chosen to marry her childhood friend Laurie. She understands that the loneliness she feels is no excuse to marry someone she doesn’t love simply because she wants someone to love her. I love that we see this side of Jo because, once again, it shows us the world is not black and white.

In Louisa May Alcott’s original novel, Jo does end up marrying a German professor named Friedrich Bhaer. However, Gerwig takes a more original approach and leaves it open-ended. When Jo takes her life experiences and writes them into her own book titled Little Women, she presents it to her editor, Mr. Dashwood, who tells her the book won’t sell if the main character, Jo, doesn’t end the story as a married woman. Initially, he isn’t sure about publishing the story at all, that is until his daughters find the chapters Jo submitted and demand to find out what happens. To me, this is a representation of how big publications don’t always resonate with stories, but audiences do.

The way Jo’s story resonated with the young girls is the same way Alcott’s novel has resonated with women for over a century, and Gerwig’s adaptation continues to resonate with women of this generation. While Jo ultimately writes a marriage story for her character, my interpretation of Little Women’s ending is that in Jo’s actual life, she never does end up getting married. Gerwig’s ending honors Alcott’s published two-part novel, but it’s also an ode to her original idea. Alcott didn’t want Jo to get married, but like in the film, her editor told her the book wouldn’t sell if the female character didn’t end up married. The way Gerwig chose to end the film was brilliant and done with so much love and respect to the story and to Alcott’s truest desires.

“I Have Loved You Ever Since I Have Known You, Jo”

Little Women. 2019. Sony Pictures.

My newsletter would feel incomplete if I didn't discuss the most heartbreaking scene in the film and the one that's the most quoted on TikTok. I love Jo and Laurie's friendship throughout Little Women, and from my perspective, there isn't much romantic between them; they have an almost brother-sister bond, and it seems inevitable that their relationship will remain platonic. However, this knowing doesn't make it any less painful to watch Laurie pour his heart out, only for Jo to turn him down. I love who Jo is, and I love her friendship with Laurie, who she's always referred to as "Teddy," but Timothée Chalamet's acting is so exquisite it makes me, even for a moment, wish she would have just accepted his proposal.

It only intensifies the sadness when Jo tells him she doesn't even know why she can't love him the way he wants her to; she just knows she can't. Laurie then says some dark things about how he'd rather die than understand why Jo isn't right for him, but the point is Laurie is devastated. Every time I watch this scene, I can't help but wonder if it's what inspired Taylor Swift to write "champagne problems" for her album evermore–she wrote her albums folklore and evermore during Covid lockdowns and admitted a lot of the songs were inspired by movies she was watching or books she was reading while in quarantine.

I also watched this same scene from the 1994 Little Women adaptation, and while each is unique in its own way, Gerwig's is the one that stands out more for me. I think a lot of people could agree that Saoirse Ronan (Jo) and Timothée Chalamet have such a beautiful real-life friendship and real-life chemistry reminiscent of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, and that's what makes the scene work so well. Later, when Laurie goes on to marry Jo's sister, Amy, I don't blame her when she initially tells Laurie she won't let him choose her just because Jo turned him down.

I don't know if I'd be able to move on from the fact that if Jo said yes, Laurie would be married to her instead. Amy also has an incredible monologue in which she defends her initial choice to marry Fred Vaughn because of his wealth. Though she ultimately accepts Laurie's proposal. It makes sense as she admits to always being in love with him as a child. Still, it does feel like Amy was his second option, even if he insists that's not the truth, and even if, as viewers, we're meant to believe Laurie really is in love with Amy and doesn't have feelings for Jo anymore.

Sisterhood

Little Women. 2019. Sony Pictures.

Among all its themes, sisterhood is at the core of the story, which is why it's called Little Women, after all. It's a story of sisters who play together, sisters who are there for each other in tough times, sisters who sometimes do terrible things to each other, and most of all, sisters who grow up together. There's a simple scene when the family goes to a ball, and while dancing, Meg hurts her ankle, and her sisters help carry her home. Then there's the scene after Jo cuts her hair when Amy comforts her as she cries. One of my favorite scenes is Christmas morning when the sisters sit in the living room talking about their dreams for their futures.

“Life is too short to be angry at one’s sisters,”-Jo March, Little Women.

There's also one of the hardest scenes to watch, which expresses the deep envy and resentment the sisters sometimes have for each other. Amy is very jealous of Jo, especially because she has always loved Laurie, but Laurie is in love with Jo. When Jo and Meg go to the theater with John and Laurie, Amy is angry that she was left behind, so she takes the pages from the book Jo was working on and burns them. She feels guilty for doing this, but as she apologizes, she's aware she can't take back what she's done, and she accepts that she did it because she wanted to hurt Jo.

However, even if the March sisters sometimes feel jealous or compare their shortcomings to each other, they all stand on their own with their unique qualities. Beth is the shyest sister, but even she has a talent that none of the others have. She also has a special bond with Laurie's grandfather because of her love for playing the piano. When she dies, he is especially affected by it. After all, Little Women is also a story about loss. Jo mourns the loss of her childhood as Meg prepares to marry John. She also mourns the loss of Meg, admitting it feels like John is taking her sister away. Laurie mourns Jo's loss when she turns down his marriage proposal. Mostly, the family mourns the loss of Beth.

“You will be bored of him in two years, and we will be interesting forever”-Jo March, Little Women.

However, when Jo writes her story into a book, she commemorates all she has lost, the greatest loss being Beth. Inside her book, the stories live on forever. She can revisit them anytime she wants, and the world can read about them, too, meaning nothing could ever be forgotten. In a way, that means it could never actually be lost. There are six Little Women adaptations, but after the most recent in 2019, which garnered six Academy Award nominations and one win for Best Costume Design, it would be a shame for anyone to try and touch it again, at least not for a very long time.