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.

The Winona Ryder 1995 version IS Little Women to me as it came out just at the right age for me.

The 2019 version is kind of a post-modern take on it, as Louisa May Alcott becomes a character within the film….but like PP have said, I actually think it would be more interesting to make a film about Louisa May Alcott herself, rather than another remake. The Alcott's were pretty out there for the time and it has been suggested that Louisa may have been a closeted gay woman.

I think Bhaer was made much more attractive and younger in this version cos we’ve realised that young women marrying guys 20 years their senior is actually a bit creepy…

Forgot to add I agree with the poster who said that, in the 1990s version, Kirsten Dunst was brilliant as young Amy but the actress cast as adult Amy was all wrong, had none of the same charm. I've always wished they could have shut down production for a few years and then used Kirsten for all of it. Apart from that it is nearly the perfect version.

The Elizabeth Taylor/June Alyson/Margaret O Brien version is the best.

don’t think Laura Derne was right at all.

That's so interesting! She wasn't what I'd pictured but her interpretation was better and helped me understand how these chaotic loving creatures came to exist in an unintentionally subversive way. She was like Jo thirty years on and that worked for me. She did a beautiful job of demonstrating how Laurie would have longed for her, I thought. Not just the intentional mothering but the familial touch she had with him from the outset. Her question 'What about you Laurie, do you need ice?' went to my heart - I understood his yearning at that moment as he was immediately included in her care, but didn't need ice and couldn't ask for what he did need. There were moments like that that redeemed it for me.

themadgardener

I agree with you.

I thought it was truely truely dreadful and loved little women.

That guy from Normal People would have made a good Laurie...

I agree, but generally find Little Women to be very dull anyway and can’t understand why people love it so much. What am I missing?

Yeh I thought it was terrible too . Not a patch on the old one .

The 90s Gillian Armstrong directed one is not too bad. Winona Ryder is pretty well cast as Jo in that! Haven't seen the most recent one, but I can't much stand Emma Watson so I probably shouldn't!

Interesting that no one likes Emma W as Meg. I thought she was excellently cast and very natural. It was a very difficult part as there was a whole story in that conflict between love and poverty while still being recognisably Meg March from years earlier. Meg in the book and excellent 90s version is a little prim and principally there to frame Jo but this Meg was a richer character - although arguably still mainly performing a function in demonstrating why Amy wasn't entirely a self-centered gold digger but genuinely obliged to marry well.

I likes the adult Amy in the 90s one, she was cool and elegant, like book Amy.

E.Ws accent is appalling, I can't seriously believe out of all the actress in that age group she was the best. Still riding on the coat tails of HP!

@Ibane
But there’s never been a faithful-to-the novel Bhaer that I’m aware of — Book Bhaer was a stout, middle-aged, bushy-bearded bore, who ticked Jo off for writing frivolous stuff for the papers, and behaved more like her dad than a lover. Casting directors tend to sex him up, as they do Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sense and Sensibility, because otherwise viewers would just think Marianne and Jo are being shortchanged and tune out.
Nooo I love the Bhaer love story in the book! It’s all about how a kind good person can be more attractive than a handsome dashing one. He helps her because he’s her friend and couples should help each other and look out for each other. It’s supposed to be the opposite of the fashionable courtship.

@maddiemookins16mum

The Elizabeth Taylor/June Alyson/Margaret O Brien version is the best.

I agree. The snow scenes were a wonderful backdropand the film makers didn'yt? Shy away from making No a loveable misfit. I remember crying buckets over Margaret O'Brien's death scene. How I loved that film!

Ahh this was the first adaptation I've really disliked Amy!

@Kezzie200

Ahh this was the first adaptation I've really disliked Amy!

Ehh?

You prefer the usual snobby, pretentious gold-digger interpretation of Amy!

I loved it. Now wondering if I missed something and should have hated it…

@viques

Since Emma W made her true self known I call this film Little Menstruators so as not to upset her.

DD (9) and I watched it a couple of days ago. We both loved it. She loved it so much she watched it again the next day.

This was my first introduction to LW as a very young child before the books. I think it’s still my fave

I took DD to see it at the cinema. We really enjoyed it

I enjoyed it too! Well, I cried pretty much from the start, but only because I liked it.

We need 1994 Meg, 1994 young Amy, Pugh's grown up Amy, June Allison's Jo and Beth from the 2017 version.

Quite liked Laura Dern and the chap who played the dad as the parents. 1994 Aunt March hands down.

Christian Bale was a perfect Laurie!

the chap who played the dad as the parents.

Bob Odenkirk- breaking bad and better call Saul.