Maybe We Do Need Another 'Little Women' Adaptation After All
When the news broke that another adaptation of Little Women was headed our way, some fans were naturally uneasy.
After all, the BBC and Masterpiece just dropped a muti-part television version of the story last year, and though it wasn’t exactly a smash hit, it wasn’t like it was bad either. (In fact some of it was pretty darn good!)
It was kind of hard to imagine that this was a time in which we needed another version of this story.
However, once the first trailer for director Greta Gerwig’s new take on the Louisa May Alcott classic arrived, well. Let’s just say some minds were changed. Including mine.
The cast is basically a murderer’s row of incredible talent, including Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlan, Laura Dern and Oscar royalty Meryl Streep as Aunt March. It’s hard not to be excited about the prospect of these women to working together, and that feeling is compounded by the fact that this appears to be one of the most modern period drama adaptations ever put together.
And it all looks amazing, of course.
If the trailer is anything to go by, this is definitively a take that emphasizes sisterhood and female agency, emphasizing that women are allowed to have just as many dreams and ambitions as men, even if they don’t look precisely like what’s expected of them.
“Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts,” Jo insists. “And they’ve got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as just beauty. I’m so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I’m so sick of it.”
Watch for yourselves below, and maybe get a Kleenex or two ready.
Sidebar: This is a two-minute trailer and maybe already contains my favorite portrayal of Amy March ever? Justice for the idea that Amy has goals beyond becoming someone’s wife and we deserve to see that version of her character onscreen.
In fact, this clip does an amazing job of conveying how revolutionary an act it was for these little women to have dreams and goals of their own, outside of becoming a rich man’s wife. The tremendous societal pressure to marry – and marry well – was something all girls encountered, whether they wanted to be artists or authors or wives to men deemed less than suitable for their station. And it’s honestly nice to see a version of this story that acknowledges that fact so openly.
So maybe we do need another Little Women after all.
The film hits theaters on December 25. Are you planning to give it a look? Let's discuss.
