Last night my Little Women reading group and I met to watch the first episode of the PBS Masterpiece Little Women. It was wonderful to see them (my friends and the March sisters) again. My reading group had meet several times in 2016, while I was writing my book on Little Women, to discuss the novel and its two successors. They had all grown up with the book, and it was interesting to hear their thoughts as they returned to it as adults.
I was equally interested to see what they thought of the new film of Little Women. Die-hard fans of the novel are usually quite squeamish about adaptations. But I find them fascinating. I enjoy seeing what choices the writer and director have made. I fee like a kid in a candy store–each adaptation gives me a new text to analyze. But it’s different when you are a fan, and I needed my reading group friends to help me see beyond my critical lens (and help me with my first attempt at live-tweeting!).
I’m happy to say that we were all generally pleased. After hearing some real vitriol in the wake of the BBC airing of the film, I was worried. But for these women, and for myself, Heidi Thomas’s version hit a lot of the right notes.
First and foremost, can I say that I love Emily Watson’s Marmee? All of the earlier Marmees have been too perfect and therefore not quite human. To hear this Marmee tell Jo, as she does in the book, “I am nearly angry every day of my life,” was a revelation. None of the other films even addressed her anger and attempts to suppress it, which is one of the most important moments in the book. I tweeted about it and it kind of went viral (well, for me). Seems I struck a chord.
I also got some great responses. Here are two I just loved:
They are so right. Women’s anger has been such a taboo topic, and it’s great to see that we are finally getting to the point where we can acknowledge it–especially in a mother–something Alcott did in 1868! She was ahead of her time in so many ways.
Heidi Thomas takes it a step further, though, than even Alcott did. She allowed Marmee a brief lapse in controlling her anger in the mad scramble after the telegram comes. She snaps at Jo in a moment of extreme pressure as she tries to adjust to the news that her husband is sick, perhaps dying, in Washington, and that she must go to him. As one of my reading-group friends said, “Who of us hasn’t done that with our kids?” Exactly. Although Alcott doesn’t show her snapping at Jo, it makes perfect sense for Thomas to have her do so. It is perfectly in keeping with her character and humanizes her further, even more so than Alcott probably felt comfortable doing. (A mother in full control of her anger, Marmee is an idealized version of Abigail Alcott, who was known for letting her anger out when she’d had enough.)
Another nice touch is that Marmee, just after she snaps at Jo, turns to her girls and asks for their help. “Oh, children, children, help me to bear it!” she says in the book. This is another important line because it shows us that Marmee is not perfect. Susan Sarandon’s Marmee never admits that she needs help or is not completely in control at all times. To me, she isn’t Marmee. Emily Watson is finally the Marmee Alcott envisioned and love. (In this interview, Maya Hawke does a wonderful job explaining the importance of showing Marmee’s vulnerable side.)
The other thing this version is getting right is Jo. Kate Hepburn and Winona Ryder were Hollywood beauties, and they couldn’t hide that. While extraordinary in some respects, Jo is really just an ordinary girl, and that is why so many girls have identified with her. Until now, June Allyson best approximated Jo for me–her wild clumsiness, her lack of interest in male attention, and her determination to just be herself. But now Maya Hawke comes along and gives us a Jo who is so much more of a real girl, who is natural and bumbling and unaffected, kind of clueless, really–and not unattainably gorgeous. Here is what my friends said:
Beth also is getting her due in this version of Little Women. It’s wonderful to see her a more fleshed out character, whose shyness is more than just something for her sisters to tease her about. It is a real disability and shuts her off from the world. Thomas has Marmee trying to help Beth overcome what is clearly agoraphobia, which is true to Alcott’s story. When each sister identifies the fault that she needs to work on, Beth points to her shyness. Thomas was right to take that seriously and show her working on it.
There were a couple of things that didn’t work for us. We’re not crazy about Amy. When she fell through the ice, I tweeted:
As others have said, she is just too old to make her childish act of burning her sister’s manuscripts even remotely understandable. And, in this version, she says a lot of horrible things afterwards too that make it hard to want Jo to forgive her. I feel like they’ve gone too far with Amy’s brattish tendencies. Amy lso had many endearing qualities that Kirstin Dunst brought out beautifully.
And, lastly, I’m not crazy about the costumes. They are just too fancy. The embroidered ribbon trimming was so beyond what the Marches would have worn. They don’t look poor at all. And don’t get me started on all the corsets and the obligatory corset-lacing scene. Just because it’s Masterpiece Theater does not mean that we have to watch young women lacing up their corsets. Alcott was not a fan!
Here is one of Alcott’s characters in her novel Eight Cousins on corsets:
Nature knows how to mould a woman better than any corset-maker, and I won’t have her interfered with. My dear Clara, have you lost your senses that you can for a moment dream of putting a growing girl into an instrument of torture like this?
Oh well, I’ll put up with the corsets and fancy clothes for a fuller representation of Marmee and Beth and a more natural Jo any day. I look forward to seeing what the next (and final, two-hour) episode holds–and tweeting about it again. (Look for #LittleWomenPBS and my feed, @AnneBoydRioux, during or after the show.)