☆☆☆☆☆
Here, finally, is the balm for our times, whose generous, warm, deeply caring soul looks straight at humanity and pronounces it good and worthy; a film that follows so many decades of slavish, imagination-starved page-to-screen transliterations that it makes film adaptation seem like a new art form.
Little Women is an exquisite piece of work. It is breathtakingly beautiful, made with exquisite care by writer-director Greta Gerwig, and to call it the best movie of the year seems something of a disservice: As it unfolds, you're aware that this is a film that is going to be watched and loved for many generations to come. It's extravagant, lush, splendidly envisioned, but also tender, aching and infused with a spirit of love and kindness that is all too rare.
You might, as I did, dimly remember the classic book from childhood, or one of its many adaptations, but Gerwig has found a magnificent new way to approach Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel. Though it's set during the Civil War, the emotions at play are timeless: yearning, jealousy, joy, anger, disappointment, grief, hope. Saoirse Ronan is mighty as Jo, who here is quite forthrightly assumed to be Alcott, but every member of the cast is magnificent: Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlon as sisters Meg, Amy and Beth; Timothée Chalamet and Chris Cooper as handsome neighbor Laurie and his father; Laura Dern as Marmee; Meryl Streep as Aunt March. Does it sound like fawning? It is. Little Women is just glorious.
Viewed Dec. 31, 2019 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1900
Little Women is an exquisite piece of work. It is breathtakingly beautiful, made with exquisite care by writer-director Greta Gerwig, and to call it the best movie of the year seems something of a disservice: As it unfolds, you're aware that this is a film that is going to be watched and loved for many generations to come. It's extravagant, lush, splendidly envisioned, but also tender, aching and infused with a spirit of love and kindness that is all too rare.
You might, as I did, dimly remember the classic book from childhood, or one of its many adaptations, but Gerwig has found a magnificent new way to approach Louisa May Alcott's semi-autobiographical novel. Though it's set during the Civil War, the emotions at play are timeless: yearning, jealousy, joy, anger, disappointment, grief, hope. Saoirse Ronan is mighty as Jo, who here is quite forthrightly assumed to be Alcott, but every member of the cast is magnificent: Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlon as sisters Meg, Amy and Beth; Timothée Chalamet and Chris Cooper as handsome neighbor Laurie and his father; Laura Dern as Marmee; Meryl Streep as Aunt March. Does it sound like fawning? It is. Little Women is just glorious.
Viewed Dec. 31, 2019 -- ArcLight Sherman Oaks
1900
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