How god awful is Little Women (2019)?

[MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry]

I’m watching it today for the first time having loved little women growing up and seen the 90’s version. It’s just so bad!! and the casting of Laurie! He’s terrible.

I remember the 1949 version. Even at the time I found the casting odd; Elizabeth Taylor (a well-developed 16yr old) didn't resemble 12yr old Amy. 35yr old Peter Lawford was 15yr old Laurie. Only Margaret O'Brien as Beth fitted the part.

I quite liked the timeline switching bit of it.
I love Timothy Chalamet but he wasn’t right for this.
Amy was too old for the role but I liked the other women.
It wasn’t award worthy but I enjoyed it well enough.

I thought the cinematography was beautiful, and Amy (although I didn’t like here) left the biggest impression. And the mother. The rest was very forget although it was the first film I’d seen Emma W in, and was a bit surprised by her (not in a good way). She was quite out of place.

I thought it was abysmal, but I love the books so maybe that’s why.

Oh my goodness!! Jo & frederich at the station- they spat out those lines!! did they both need the loo?

I agree I was disappointed.
I did think the cinematography was pretty.

Jo was not a good Jo imo.
Florence Pugh had a better Jo energy.

i loved the book Little Women,i knew several pages off my heart i read it so much as a child.This version i heard was changed in many ways so i just could not watch,The version with Elizabeth Taylor was good.

I quite enjoyed it when I saw it in the cinema when it was first released. Agree that Laurie was miscast and Prof Bhaer was horribly misrepresented, but I liked seeing Amy depicted as a practical woman making the best of the options available to her in that time and place instead of as a spoilt brat.

@BingoLingFucker

You can’t beat the 1949 version.

I can’t bring myself to watch the new version, Emma Watson is such a dreadful actress it puts me off.

See also 'Beauty and The Beast'. I nearly cried

@Pollingbadly

I think you have to watch the whole thing to get it.

Ok so I’ve finished the whole thing- I didn’t experience a “getting it” moment when all the awfulness made sense?

None of it made sense except in the directors head.

I didn’t think it was great but I disagree that the story was confusing. I’ve never read it or seen the other film versions and it made sense.
It sounds like I probably liked it more because I haven’t read the book or seen the other films, I had no ideas of the characters in my head. But I will say it definitely didn’t make me want to read it.

I thought the BBC version from 2017 was much better. I also loved the Elizabeth Taylor one.

All the male roles seemed even more badly miscast.

Oh I liked it. Loved the ending where it becomes about Louisa Alcott giving in to her publisher’s insistence that she marry Jo off.

But I saw it with my daughter, who hasn’t read the stories inside out, and didn’t know the history of it, and she had no clue what was going on!

I liked it when I saw it in the cinema. Couldn't buy EW as a penniless figure though, or her acting in general.

I didn’t read the book and found the film confusing with the switching back and forth, especially the bit where one sister is ill but it keeps flashing back to a time she was previously sick. It felt all jumbled and confusing.

I loved it. I thought Florence Pugh in particular was very good.

It's really interesting that everyone is lauding Winona Ryder; her acting was much-derided when I was a teen, especially in 'Dracula' and 'Girl, Interrupted'.

I do think June Allyson made a good Jo.

I always find Jo so fucking annoying and I know she’s supposed to be the heroine but I can’t stand her. I felt that the film displayed her annoying qualities but was sympathetic to Amy.

It’s not my favourite book, though I have to say.

Agree it was awful, turned off after 20 mins and I love the book.

Still laughing at Little Menstruators.

I like Susan Sarandon as the mother. And Gabriel Byrne as the professor.

They felt the need to make a remake that would be different to what had been done and it backfired. It often does when remakes of the same film have been made over and over again. They need to know when to stop.

Has a film of Jo's boys been made? If not, that could potentially do quite well. Why couldn't they have done that?

They could make a film about the Alcott family!