LITTLE WOMEN
A film review by Jeffrey Graebner
Copyright 1994 Jeffrey Graebner
At their best, family-oriented stories should have the same depth and intelligence of those that are intended primarily for adults. The makers of the latest film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's LITTLE WOMEN recognized the intelligence in the story and have created a very literate and mature film. The film is full of wonderful characters and situations that should appeal to everyone whether young or old, male or female.
The film lovingly presents a few years in the lives of the March family, led by Marmie (Susan Sarandon) the poor but loving mother of four daughters. Most of the film centers around Jo (Winona Ryder), the strong-willed daughter who hopes to one day become a writer. The other daughters are romantic Meg (Trini Alvarado), quietly contented Beth (Claire Danes), and artistic Amy (played early in the film by Kirstin Dunst and later portrayed by Samantha Mathis). The film also introduces us to three key men in the lives of the March family: Thomas "Laurie" Lawrence (Christian Bale), the boy next door who becomes the sister's closest outside friend; Laurie's tutor (Eric Stoltz) who captures Meg's heart; and finally a German professor (Gabriel Byrne) who meets Jo in New York and encourages her to write from her heart.
It is initially tempting to say that LITTLE WOMEN does not have much of a story, but that really isn't accurate. The story here simply follows the lives of a group of believable and realistic characters. The film never seems overplotted or allows the story to overwhelm the characterizations. By the end of the film, the characters all seem like very real people and we have seen an interesting portion of their lives.
I have never read Alcott's original novel so I don't know how much she balanced the time given to each of the sisters. For this adaptation, screenwriter Robin Swicord and director Gillian Armstrong selected to focus the majority of their attention on Jo. This turns out to be a wise decision, providing the film with a strong central focus by allowing the audience to see the other characters mainly through her eyes. Occasional voice-over narration is used to strengthen the feeling that Jo is telling us the story.
This focus on Jo places a lot of importance on Winona Ryder's performance. Ryder gives an Oscar-worthy performance, which is a large part of the reason why the film works so well. Over the last several years, Ryder has established herself as one of the most distinguished actors of her generation. She has been courageous with her selection of roles and she is just as good in period roles such as this as she is in more contemporary films. Ryder brings a great deal of strength, intelligence and determination to her performance as Jo. Her Jo is something of a tomboy, but also has a definite feminine side that she doesn't hesitate to show when appropriate.
One of Ryder's greatest strenghts as an actress is her very expressive face that allows her to often convey much more then just the simple, literal meaning of her dialog. This is a skill that is put to good use a number of times in this film. There is one scene in particular late in the film where her facial expression adds a bunch of additional meaning to a very simple one-line answer to a question. This generated a strongly positive reaction from the audience at the screening I attended.
Ryder's performance as Jo provides an interesting contrast to her Oscar-nominated performance in THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. Both films take place in similar periods and concentrate quite a bit on societal roles (particularly for women). In the earlier film, Ryder's character seemed outwardly innocent and naive as she went along with the rules of society while subtlely showing that she was aware of, and even controlling, everything that was going on. As Jo, she is much more vocal about her feelings as she frequently and consciously goes against society's expectations. Comparing these two exceptional performances strongly illustrates Ryder's impressive range.
While Ryder tends to dominate the film, several of the other actors are also able to make strong impressions. As the one sister who is most torn between the traditions of society and the desire for a more liberated life, Trini Alvarado's Meg shows some interesting inner conflicts. In her own way, she bucks tradition just like her sisters. Claire Danes (who is so good on the vastly underappreciated TV series "My So-Called Life") gives the film's most subtle performance. Beth's ambitions in life are less grand than those of her sisters, but she is able to quietly find her own form of happiness. When her life starts to take a tragic turn of direction late in the film, Danes is given some interesting opportunities to shine.
Amy ends up being the film's weakest character. In the first part of the film, she is very well-played by Kirstin Dunst (the young vampire in INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE) who brings a lot of spunk and sparkle to the role. About two-thirds of the way through the film, there is a four-year jump forward in time and Samantha Mathis takes over the role. At this point, the four sisters go their separate ways and the film (wisely) continues to concentrate primarily on Jo. Unfortunately, this leaves Mathis with very little time to make much of an impression. There really isn't anything seriously wrong with Mathis' performance, but it is jarring to have the sudden shift in actors (particularly since Dunst's performance is a hard act to follow) and the movie never fully overcomes this.
Susan Sarandon does not have a lot of screen time as Marmie, but she gives her usual skilled performance. Her character is unusually liberated for her time, but she never seems anachronistic. It is clear that she is very *aware* of the customs of the time, but simply does not fully believe in some of them. Sarandon portrays Marmie as a stern parent who is also clearly very loving and fair. It is very easy to understand why her daughters respect her and it is also clear that the respect is mutual.
Other than the Marchs, the most visible character in the film is Laurie. Ever since his stunning debut performance in Steven Spielberg's EMPIRE OF THE SUN, Christian Bale has continued to give one strong performance after another in a variety of period films (including HENRY V, NEWSIES and SWING KIDS). Even when the films have not been very good, his performances have been just fine. Bale plays Laurie as a character who is close to all of the March sisters in a series of relationships that even he does not fully understand. He brings some impressive emotion to the scenes where he explores these relationships, although his relationship with the older Amy probably should have been a little more fully explored.
As the other key men in the lives of the March sisters, Gabriel Byrne and Eric Stoltz are not given much screen time but give decent performances (although Byrne's German accent takes a little getting used to). Even though Byrne is second billed in the film, he doesn't even appear until the last half hour and only has a few major scenes. Those scenes are pivotal to the story, though, and he and Ryder work well together.
One particularly effective aspect of Swicord's script (and I assume this comes from Alcott's novel) is the respect and admiration that it shows for the art of writing. Jo's desire to write seems exceptionally genuine and the film does take the time to show some of the sense of liberation that can come from expressing your feelings on paper. The sequence in which Jo finally is inspired to truly write from her heart is one of the best staged depictions of the *act* of writing that I have seen on film.
The cinematography and production design very effectively express the look of the period. The details seem very authentic and believable and the camerawork never gets in the way of the storytelling. Although many filmmakers tend to shoot this type of period drama in scope, the decision to shoot this one in a narrower format was a wise one. The intimate nature of the story might have been harmed by a wider format.
I truly hope that this smart and very engaging drama manages to find the audience that it deserves. I worry that people will avoid the film on the basis of it being a "children's movie" or a "woman's movie". In truth, it is simply a good, smart drama with some teriffic performances. It is one of the best films of 1994.
-- Jeffrey P. Graebner Columbus, Ohio
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews