Movies2020: Little Women
I watched "Little Women" this Sunday, after I already listened to the Overinvested podcast of it. Which gives a pretty balanced view of the movie, actually. Personally, I hated it. I don't click with the actress who played Jo, at all. If you like Saoirse Ronan, you may enjoy this movie more. Laura Dern (not one of my favorite actresses either) is horrible as Marmee; she's just not the caring, sweet type this role needs. Amy is okay, and it took me and gf ten minutes to figure out that the father was - Saul from Better Call Saul. ;) Meryl Streep is great, playing a great role. Timothée Chalamet is pretty but way too gay for this very heterosexual role. He would have made a great gay friend to Jo, and how they were together as friends made the most sense to me.
The two timelines: I consider myself a pretty good movie watcher but I was constantly confused about what timeline we were supposed to be in right now. I hated the script, sorry, Greta Gerwig. It felt like I could tell whenever a line of dialogue was taken right from the book Little Women, and those were the best lines. Also, I am not a fan of, for lack of better word, heaps of people lying across each other laps, and this is supposed to be signify HappinessTM. I don't know. I guess it felt too much like a glorification of blood family to me. I wish people would simply adapt 19th century books as historical dramas set fully within the 19th century. Yes, Little Women is not supposed to be angsty; at least the first book is supposed to be a happy book. But all that familial, sisterly happiness only works for me before the background of the very real oppression of women in the 19th century. And I am usually the one to defend 19th century women from modern feminist interpretations, and argue for seeing women in history within their own time, and not within definitions of freedom and oppression that are ours and not theirs.
There's this whole manipulative sentimentalism of the movie. It's hard not to cry when a character like Beth dies. But I felt myself emotionally withdraw from those scenes because they were too overdone. No, let's not even talk about the music. I found myself getting VERY impatient and annoyed with the whole thing. This movie is not going on the list of good thing.
On Wednesday I am watching Knives Out again with a friend, and I can't wait. :)
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