March of the Pen-Wins

It’s December, so I’m contractually obligated to feature my favorite Stealth Christmas Movie: 1994’s Little Women, directed by Gillian Armstrong, written by Robin Swicord, and adapted, of course, from the 1868/9 novel by Louisa May Alcott.

Cards on the table: I consider this a nearly perfect movie. I will fist-fight Greta Gerwig over it and proudly call that feminism. (Unfortunately I have an entire separate post’s worth of takes on the 2019 movie; I’m saving as many as I can for a future Christmas.)

We open in 1860s Concord, Massachusetts, as the March family copes with three challenges:

1. the absence of their beloved patriarch on the Civil War’s front lines

2. a “temporary poverty”—the kind that still lets you budget for a live-in servant

3. an utterly unnecessary voiceover that pops up occasionally for about two-thirds of the movie

The voiceover is provided by Winona Ryder, aka Jo March, aka the best iteration of Jo March to appear on screen OR page. That’s right, Alcott, I said it. This Jo is better than your Jo. Better than Saoirse Ronan’s Jo—and I like Saoirse Ronan, truly! Better than Maya Hawke in the 2017 miniseries, though she’s also excellent. Katharine Hepburn, I love you, but sit this round out. June Allyson, who even let you in here? We’re talking about the GOAT. Ryder’s Jo bubbles over with energy, wit, ambitions, insecurities, bad takes, and fun. She’s convincing as both an irrepressible live wire and a bundle of awkwardness.

And she’s the second of four sisters. Here are the others:

MEG (Trini Alvarado). Occupation: governess. Familial role: the conventional one, the classic oldest child. tldr: Meg generally gets short shrift in adaptations, solely due to Hollywood’s prejudice against boring characters. Alvarado does fine with what she’s given.

BETH (Claire Danes). Occupation: recluse; piano player. Familial role: the shy one, the sweet one. tldr: Even before [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS], Book Beth is a certified angel, which could easily be a snoozefest. Luckily Danes, who was only fifteen when this movie came out, is freaking transcendent—balancing believable fragility with quiet warmth, subtly anchoring the whole family and particularly Jo.

AMY (Kirsten Dunst as a kid, Samantha Mathis as an adult). Occupation: student; artist; gold-digger; citrus hoarder. Familial role: the annoying one. tldr: Minutes into this movie, Amy muses, “I’m a selfish girl,” and her mom’s like “Aw” but does not contradict her. Dunst’s performance is delightful, though. She’s such a tiny powerhouse here that I kinda wonder if she got body-snatched sometime before 2002’s Spider-Man.

So three-quarters of these portrayals are all-timers, and that’s before you even get to Marmee (Susan Sarandon), who’s much more well-rounded and less saccharine than Book Marmee without feeling anachronistic. This Marmee doesn’t have to tell Jo “I am angry every day of my life,” as Book Marmee and 2019 Marmee do; we see that, and we see the discipline harnessing it, and we are not prepared to watch Rocky Horror in college.

I fully buy the dynamics of this onscreen family (at least until Mathis gets her turn as Amy): Meg and Jo as the push-pull older pair, often clashing but relying on that friction for balance; Jo and Amy as the two strongest personalities, often really clashing but respecting each other's hustle; Beth holding down the fort with gentle humor, enjoying Jo’s mischief and Amy’s loose-cannon nonsense while Meg tries to play it cool.

These sisters offer more cultural enrichment than the Kennedy Center: They perform the soapy plays that Jo writes, produce their own tongue-in-cheek newspaper, and sing in perfect harmony when Beth plays the piano.

But they also have Yearnings, epitomized by their Christmas wishes:

• Jo wants to be a famous author and see the world instead of drudging away as a companion for rich, curmudgeonly Aunt March and Aunt March’s tiny fuzzy dog.

• Meg wants her family to stop embarrassing her by being “poor” and fun.

• Amy wants to reshape her nose and marry rich.

• Pure-souled Beth only hopes “the war will end so Father can come home.” Doesn’t even ask for a little citrus as a treat!

They’re all curious about a new arrival. The Marches’ mega-rich elderly neighbor has taken custody of his grandson, Theodore Laurence, aka Laurie, aka Christian Bale. Beth observes sympathetically, “He looks lonely,” followed by a panicked “You don’t think he’ll try to call?!” Jo laments that he’s stuck with “that awful old man,” to which Meg responds, “Jo, don’t say awful; it’s slang.” So Grandpa is not beating the substance of the allegations.

On Christmas morning, the family has splurged for a fancy breakfast that they immediately decide to bring to an Actually Poor family, the Hummels. En route to deliver the food—including an orange that Amy has relinquished only under duress—they cross paths with Laurie and Grandpa, and Jo toasts Laurie with the coffee carafe she’s carrying. Laurie is, henceforth, obsessed. Tbf, if Winona Ryder made eye contact with me, I too would spend the next 5-7 years trying to marry her.

The Marches adopt Laurie as their honorary brother, which only gets weird later. Over the next year, he distinguishes himself in the following ways:

• dancing goofily with Jo at a party

• slut-shaming Meg at a different party when she gets carried away trying to impress some snobbish rich girls

• promptly apologizing for this uncool behavior, as he should

• helping Jo rescue Amy when she falls through thin ice while skating

• responding to Amy’s reflection of “I don’t want to die—I’ve never even been kissed” by promising (jokingly!!!!) to kiss her before she dies

Sidenote: I cannot overstate how uncreepy the Laurie/Amy dynamic is initially. They BOTH treat that kiss line as a silly attempt to cheer her up, not as the moment either of them realizes they’re endgame, because Jesus Christ on a croissant, why would you do that? Why would Grown-Up Amy regard a childhood crush as a FOUNDATION for a relationship? What sicko would create that framing? Oh wait.

As you may have gathered, this family encounters a fair amount of peril. Here’s my tally with resulting casualties.

Colds: 2 (Beth and Amy)

Off-screen disciplinary hand-beatings: 1 (Amy, for underground lime trafficking at school)

Fire incidents: 2 (Meg’s hair, via Jo spacing out with a curling iron, and Jo’s precious manuscript, via Amy in a fit of pique)

Near-drownings: 1 (Amy, whereupon Jo’s rage about the destroyed manuscript abates; well played, Amy)

Life-threatening battle wounds: 1 (Mr. March, but he’s soon fine and ready for his one line of dialogue)

Life-threatening strep: 1 (Beth)

So yeah. Beth almost dies after catching scarlet fever from the Hummel kids (RIP to these nameless children). She recovers enough to join the family Christmas celebrations and accept a new piano from a redeemed Grandpa Laurence but not enough to fend off congestive heart failure.

This pales in comparison to the movie’s real tragedy: Meg falling in love with Laurie’s tutor, John Brooke. Book Brooke (say that five times fast) is a thoughtful, low-key guy. Eric Stoltz’s Brooke is insufffffffferable. Or as Jo puts it: “He’s dull as powder, Meg! Can’t you at least marry someone amusing?” The storyverse attributes Jo’s disapproval to her fear of change, but she’s just objectively correct here! Sisters don’t let sisters marry dudes who noncanonically say “Over the mysteries of female life [pause] there is drawn a veil [pause] best left undisturbed” while examining their fingernails with a magnifying glass!

Marmee’s reservations are more practical. When Meg says, “You don’t mind that John’s poor?” Marmee goes, “…No-o-o, but I’d rather he had a house!” In the entire movie, this is the line that has aged worst. How are the interest rates looking, Marmee???

Sidenote: I actually find Book Meg’s journey pretty compelling, even though her two main plotlines are Should I marry a poor guy? and Whoops, I’ve married a poor guy and now I want a nice dress. Unlike Amy, she faces down her attachment to material comforts and her investment in what others think. And when Aunt March urges her to make a “sensible” marriage, Meg responds in “Today is the day Margaret March finally became President” fashion.

Four years later, John has presumably procured a mortgage, because he and Meg get hitched. Laurie chooses this inauspicious timing to propose to Jo. Here’s where Ryder and Bale’s chemistry turns dicey. Book Jo is not attracted to Book Laurie. Movie Jo… well, here are her reasons for turning him down:

• “Neither of us can keep our temper.” (I can!” Laurie insists. “Unless provoked!” So on the one hand, yikes. On the other hand, we’ve never actually seen them argue so this doesn’t quite land.)

• “You need someone elegant and refined.” (Our sweet summer child hasn’t clocked that inherited wealth renders actual taste unnecessary.)

• “I just can’t go be a wife.” (Hmm, I don’t seem to be hearing the canonical line “I can’t love you as you want me to,” wonder whyyyyy…)

Laurie takes this extremely, canonically, poorly. To rub salt in Jo’s wounds, Grown-Up Amy drops the news that Aunt March is taking HER to France, even though Jo’s always dreamed of going.¹ The tiny fuzzy dog is staying behind in solidarity.

This movie makes exactly three mistakes, imo.

1. the voiceover

2. Laurie’s post-rejection goatee

3. the casting of Grown-Up Amy; Mathis is borderline unwatchable. Weird affectations. Stilted line deliveries. No kinship with Dunst’s energy. It’s a shame Florence Pugh was not yet born.

Sidenote: Aunt March, on the other hand? No offense to Meryl Streep (2019) or Angela Lansbury (2017), but Mary Wickes is simply unbeatable. Her line reading of “No thank you” lives rent-free in my head.

Seeking a fresh start, Jo moves to NYC to work as a governess and try to get published. There she meets German philosophy professor Friedrich Bhaer, played by the incomparable Gabriel Byrne.²

Did I say Ryder and Bale had chemistry? I was mistaken. I was naive. It’s time to put away childish things and swoon over Gabriel Byrne.

If you’re gonna Bhaer, this is the only way to Bhaer.³ Nowhere does the adaptation walk a finer line between fidelity to and justified reinterpretation of the book. Friedrich’s an older guy (canonical) but he’s sexy (noncanonical). He’s gentle and considerate (canonical) but never stodgy (noncanonical). He’s unimpressed with the potboilers Jo starts writing under a pseudonym for easy cash (canonical) but doesn’t lecture her about their being immoral (noncanonical).

He likes poetry and opera! He gives her an orange! (My only romantic advice is to find yourself a man who’ll offer you unsolicited fruit.) And despite his reservations about her writing projects, he repeatedly insists she should do whatever she’s into! When Jo PRIES a more honest reaction out of him it’s still BEAUTIFUL: “You should be writing… from the depths of your soul. There is nothing in here of the woman that I am privileged to know.”

MFA students would push their classmates in front of a train for this kind of feedback, but Jo does not take it well. She and Friedrich implicitly break up (they have 100% been dating, complete with noncanonical smooches) over these creative differences, right before Jo gets word that Beth is dying.

Sidenote: Alcott’s sister Lizzie did die of complications from scarlet fever (possibly with other contributing causes). Oldest sister Anna Alcott did marry and have kids; youngest sister May became an artist who painted this masterpiece, which some of you may remember from the cover of a Dear America book.

I defy you to watch Beth’s final scene without tearing up. Danes sells the heck out of it, cementing the character’s inner strength: “I love being home—but I don’t like being left behind. Now I’m the one going ahead.” Jo’s left grieving but also revisiting cherished memories of childhood. Cue a new writing project, a story of the sisterhood that’s shaped her. When she finishes, she calls it A NOVEL BY JOSEPHINE MARCH (catchy!) and sends it to Friedrich (who knows a guy in publishing, don't worry about it).

MEANWHILE, Amy’s stuck in Europe with an ailing Aunt March. (“Just as well,” mutters Marmee, who consistently gives off “I don’t care for Gob” vibes re: Amy—not that I blame her!) She’s also being courted by Laurie.

Is it canonical? Yes. Is it still bad? Worse than you can imagine. I could sum up Laurie’s deal with this bit of dialogue.

LAURIE: Aunt March, you look splendid.

AUNT MARCH, 20 minutes from death: I cannot say the same for you, my boy.

He’s got that gross goatee now. He's setting Grandpa's money on fire to hang out with sex workers. He’s swigging from a flask at picnic-o’clock. Dude’s a mess. But Grown-Up Amy’s “get a grip” lecture, which could showcase her spunk and shrewdness, is more reminiscent of a random weirdo leaving an out-of-pocket comment on your social media post.

Laurie’s proposal ends with “I have always known I should be part of the March family.” This kind of pitch shouldn’t land you a second interview AND YET.

Not only does their experiment in negative chemistry go forward, but they SURPRISE the March family—who, you’ll remember, are IN MOURNING FOR BETH—by showing up unannounced with their wedding rings. Canonical, yes. Still unhinged!!!

When Amy asks Jo—in front of the entire family—if she’s chill with this, Jo confirms she is. “Though mind you, I had it on good authority our Teddy would never love again.” Why are you bringing that up now?!?! Why would anything short of a Cheney-approved interrogation drag that out of you at this juncture!?!?!? Laurie’s response: “It’s good to hear you call me Teddy again.” No wonder Amy looks so blank when Jo begs her to live close by. I mean, it’s either the realization that she really was just the last sister left standing, or more of Mathis’s lackluster acting.

Oh, and what’s Meg been up to this whole time? Having kids, obviously. The movie checks in briefly for the birth of her twins and promptly forgets about her again. Brooke is shown harvesting a cabbage from the garden, so we can infer he’s grown beyond the obsessive nail-grooming habits of his bachelorhood.

Aunt March kicks the bucket and leaves her huge house (and her tiny fuzzy dog) to Jo, who contemplates turning it (house, not dog) into a school. Soon afterward Jo finds the printouts of a pre-published book called LITTLE WOMEN BY JOSEPHINE MARCH⁴ on her kitchen table, delivered by Friedrich, who’s left already.

She noncanonically chases him down as a storm gathers. After straightening out an equally noncanonical misunderstanding about who’s married to Laurie, Jo

• A) thanks Friedrich for getting her book published

• B) offers to hire him to teach at her hypothetical school

• C) accepts his proposal, because the hypothetical school has no HR

• D) all of the above!

The ONLY thing that could’ve improved this ending is a credits montage showing the Marches and the tiny fuzzy dog flourishing a few years later, but that’s what God gave us imaginations for.

Plot, pacing, and structure: 4. It’s largely faithful to the book, yet also remarkably unstuffy and unsloggy. (Not my experience with the source material tbqh!) If Swicord had found a way to sell Laurie/Amy, this rating would be a 5 and she would be a miracle worker.

Characters: 4. If we’d gotten Meg’s “f— you” speech to Aunt March from the book, and if Grown-Up Amy had been a time-traveling Florence Pugh, I’d spring for a 5.

Historical accuracy: 5. Director, screenwriter, and cinematographer were all conscientious about depicting the 1860s setting. Nobody was, FOR INSTANCE, running around with their hair down in public past the age of fifteen.

Themes: 4. Part 2 of the book was originally titled Good Wives and there’s only so much you can do with that. But the story’s about relationships of all kinds, including your relationship with yourself—recognizing and working on your flaws, embracing what makes you unique, creating art with integrity and authenticity. Other solid themes: Care about people with less than you. Don’t marry for money. Cherish citrus when it comes to you but don’t amass more than your share. You can’t always get the Christmas wish you want, but if you try sometime, you might find you’ll get the Christmas wish you need.

1  Most adaptations make Aunt March the aunt who takes Amy to Europe. In the book, there’s a whole other aunt! But you only need one rich aunt, narratively speaking.

2  The other top contenders for this role were (wait for it) Hugh Grant and (WAIT FOR IT) John Turturro. I just… lol. Two very different lols.

3  The one thing I MUST say about the Gerwig movie is that 2019 Bhaer should’ve been pushed out a window on sight. You cannot replace one scrawny, obnoxious young guy with another scrawny, obnoxious young guy. If your Bhaer doesn’t have un-Botox-able laugh lines and shoulders wider than a ten-year-old’s, what are we even doing here?

4  Book Jo publishes a novel before she even meets Bhaer. Toward the end of the story she publishes a long, bad, sentimental poem in a magazine, which Bhaer loves. I think this ending, first used in the 1933 film, is much better. But I also see how it’s created a slippery slope to “Jo March = Louisa May Alcott,” which I think would’ve been Alcott’s worst nightmare!