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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nThe\nfilm is a quadruple coming-of-age story set in the late 1860\u2019s focusing on the\nartistically-inclined March sisters: actress Meg (Emma Watson), writer Jo\n(Saoirse Ronan), musician Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and painter Amy (Florence\nPugh). The sisters go through episodes of love, loss, career aspirations and\ncompromises, all with the loving support of their mother (Laura Dern) and the\ntypically-disapproving gaze of their aunt (Meryl Streep). The family goes\nthrough some money troubles due to the absence of its patriarch (a casting\nchoice that took me off guard) because of the war effort, but some help is\noffered in the form of wealthy neighbor Mr. Laurence (Chris Cooper, in a role yours\ntruly played in a high school production). Laurence\u2019s grandson Theodore\n(Timothee Chalamet), nicknamed \u201cLaurie,\u201d takes to spending time with the March\nfamily, especially Jo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The\noutspoken Jo is probably the most famous character of the story. She wants to go\nto New York and focus on her writing career and sees no value in the\ninstitution of marriage, driving away a love-stricken Laurie. Meg agrees rather\nquickly to marry Laurie\u2019s tutor John (James Norton), but will choosing the\npoor-but-happy lifestyle ultimately make her unhappy? Amy goes to Europe, where\nshe meets up with a self-pitying Laurie, who tries to pursue a relationship\nwith her, but she suspects that he\u2019s only doing so because he still pines for\nJo. Beth contracts an illness that forces Jo to come home from New York, which\nis just as well since her writing career is floundering. She\u2019s barely scraping\nby writing pieces that aren\u2019t conducive to her voice, which draws criticism\nfrom her scholar housemate Friedrich (Louis Garrel). Spending time with Beth\nhelps Jo rediscover her love of writing, to the point where she plans to show\nher chauvinistic publisher (Tracy Letts) a certain autobiographical work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
New\nto this version of the story is that certain scenes are flat-out imagined while\nothers are excerpts from Jo\u2019s book. It\u2019s a unique approach, through it does\nmake continuity difficult to follow, a problem not helped by the fact that it\u2019s\ntold out of order. At one point toward the end, the publisher asks, \u201cWait, so\nwho does [the Jo character in the book] marry?\u201d I could ask the same of the Jo\ncharacter in the movie. Unlike the publisher, I have no problem if it\u2019s nobody,\nI just want a clear picture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Director\nGreta Gerwig fills her version of \u201cLittle Women\u201d with her own creative voice, a\nrisky move when adapting such a well-known property, but it pays off with a\nseries of all-new empowering moments and messages. I wish the \u201cown voice coming\nthrough\u201d element also applied to the performances, with the actresses clearly\nstruggling to make the century-and-a-half dialogue sound natural. They try to\nmask it with a talking-on-top-of-each-other style that would make Robert Altman\nproud, but they don\u2019t quite pull it off. Still, this new take on a classic is a\nnice change of pace from the hoard of effects-driven blockbusters that\notherwise dominate the big holiday weekends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Grade: B-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLittle Women\u201d is rated PG for\nthematic elements and brief smoking. Its running time is 135 minutes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bob Garver The new big-screen version of the Louisa May Alcott literary classic \u201cLittle Women\u201d pulled off something of an upset at the Christmas box office. No, it… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45622"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}