I was eight years old when I read Little Women for the first time, and the memory is as clear and as vivid as if it happened yesterday. I know I read books long before I was eight; I devoured the American Girl series and Dear America stories and Nancy Drew, but Little Women is the first book I remember staying up past my bedtime for, the first book I read that required both a flashlight and tissues.
As an adult, I've reread Louisa May Alcott's classic a few times. (I'm also very partial to Eight Cousins, Rose in Bloom, and An Old Fashioned Girl, but sadly no one ever talks about those.) I've reread Little Women and never found it wanting, although occasionally I have found it to be confounding. I've read biographies on Alcott and visited The Orchard House; I've gotten lost in literary critiques and reflections of the March sisters, and I've seen almost every film adaptation ever made, even the one with Katharine Hepburn as Jo.
Perhaps, by now, I should have March Family Fatigue; I am nearly 34 years old, and I am no longer under the impression Jo was created just for me. I know now, with a 21st century lens, that Little Women has its weaknesses. I have come to terms with Alcott's literary choices, and the 1994 movie starring Winona Ryder* felt like a nice enough bow to tie up the whole thing.
But then.
In 2018, Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed Lady Bird, a film I adored with all my heart, signed on to write and direct a new adaptation of Little Women, and all of a sudden, I was in again. I am now as obsessed with Jo and Meg and Beth and Amy and Marmee and Laurie as I was when I was 8, and the tears I shed in my childhood bedroom closet after reading about Jo's dismissal of Laurie are nothing compared to the guttural sobs I tried to hold back in the theatre not once, but twice in the last few weeks.
Why? Hasn't this story already been told before, multiple times?
Yes. But there is something special about good stories told exceedingly well, and Gerwig tells Alcott's story so, so beautifully; in fact, I'm inclined to think it's exactly the way Alcott would tell it, too, if she had 21st century sensibilities and freedoms.
As I sat in the darkened theatre for my first viewing, I was wary. The movie didn't start with sisters around a hearth, but with a strong-willed young woman in a publisher's office. I wondered if I'd continue to feel disoriented as the scenes whirled by. Instead, I was caught up in it all, finding my heart softened even toward Amy, a character who has haunted me for years.
Then came the scene that broke me.
After Amy burns Jo's book -- an act I always considered absolutely wretched, but now at least understand more fully -- she falls into a frozen lake, and Marmee and Jo keep watch as Amy recovers from her scare. Jo expresses horror that her own anger might have resulted in Amy's demise, and Laura Dern's Marmee looks at her calmly. "I am not patient by nature," she confesses, "I am angry nearly every day of my life." And I sobbed and didn't stop crying until the very end, and even then my cousin, a notorious movie crier, looked at me in disbelief. "Are you still crying?"
Yes, still.
I am crying over Marmee's confessed anger and my own faulty attempts at virtue. I am crying over Jo's pride as she watches her book being printed and formed and made ready for the world. I am crying over Amy's passion and potential, at Meg's struggle for contentment, at Mr. Laurence's face when he listens to Beth play the piano for the first time. (Please give Chris Cooper all the awards he's not nominated for.) I am crying over Laurie's adoration for Marmee, his love for the March family, and his desperation to become one of them. I am crying over Jo and Laurie because no matter how old I get and how hard I try and how much I understand Alcott's decision to keep them apart, I am still wrecked by it, and no one can convince me otherwise, though Greta Gerwig almost did.
Kevin Porter wrote the most lovely review about this Little Women adaptation and why it matters and why we're moved, and his explanation serves as my own: "What a monument to the beauty of quiet lives. There is no conflict other than the inherent struggle of good people trying to love each other as best they can....Stories like this remind us that great character is attainable, and the fight to hold onto our integrity is worth it."
And now I'm crying again.
*Unpopular opinion? I never liked Winona Ryder, and especially not as Jo March. I know. I'm not even sorry, because turns out I was waiting for Saoirse Ronan.
