Review of Little Women (2019) by Ibbste — 26 Dec 2019

Several auteurs this year have taken a stab at the power of time, memory, nostalgia and the sometimes painful adjustment to changing times; none, in my view, more powerfully than Greta Gerwig in her interpretation of this oft-adapted classic.

In spite of the limitations of Civil War-era New England, especially with regard to the challenges, inequities and disadvantages of womanhood at the time, Gerwig and her mostly stellar cast manifest the early years of this story with a humility, grace, and playfulness that you want to luxuriate in and almost live in until cuts to the later years that punch you in the face with the reality of time passed and facing the ever forward-motion of life's path.

The contrast of Yorick Le Saux's effective cinematography between the nostalgia of Winter sunlit rooms and the cozy warmth of the fireplace to the drab and cloudier present allows for a simultaneous romance and melancholy to the loss of time, life, and love in a way that feels miraculous and fresh no matter how many iterations of this story have been told before.

Most can relate to many of these characters' lives in many ways, as has always been with this enduring story, but no other iteration has quite felt like such a warm embrace in its encouragement that life will contain multitudes of sadness, heartbreak, remorse, but also happiness, passion, and love, should you be open to receiving all.

It made me want to run out of the theater and write. It made me want to remind all my loved ones that I'm here for them. It reminded me to want to keep living, to my fullest possibility, when the days can often feel depressingly static and the future frighteningly uncertain.

I could have watched this movie all day.