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How god awful is Little Women (2019)?

209 replies

MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry · 27/12/2021 17:14

Shock

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.

OP posts:
Musicaltheatremum · 30/12/2021 19:36

Did anyone see the musical of little women? In Manchester in 2017 and London just before Christmas. Total tear jerker 😭

SirSamuelVimes · 30/12/2021 19:44

@RuleOfCat

Has anyone mentioned the Uggs yet? The scene where they're walking through the snow, and one of them is wearing some very un-19th century Uggs. It caused much outrage in the historical costuming community Smile.
Oh yes, there is a great video on the overall awfulness of the costumes...
nancy75 · 30/12/2021 20:30

On the back of this thread I got (made!) DD watch the Winona version this afternoon. I still love it, she said it’s still boring but at least she understood what was going on!

Snowiscold · 31/12/2021 07:50

@SirSamuelVimes

That video about the costumes is spot on.

bcc89 · 31/12/2021 08:15

I have never read the book and have just struggled through this film. It's awful to follow, I'm assuming because I haven't read the book. Which means the film hasn't done it's job really!
The chopping back and forth was really badly done, didn't enjoy it.

CrimbleCrumble1 · 31/12/2021 09:01

The reviews vary from 78 to 95% enjoying the film so it looks like Mumsnetters make up the 5% that didn’t enjoy it.

Chipsahoy · 31/12/2021 15:15

Oh, I just watched it and really enjoyed it Blush

StickyProblem · 02/01/2022 23:31

I just watched it and loved it!

I thought Emma Watson was perfectly cast, with her beauty and her slightly miserable face, she was Meg to a T. I don't like her much and enjoyed disliking Meg too. John Brook was very sexy, in fact all the men were, which they'd have to be because otherwise you'd just stay single and suck up to Aunt March! Friedrich was lovely! Grin

I liked how Marmee and Jo were the same physical type, it brought the book to life, which was never believable when sainted Marmee said to grumpy Jo "ah, you're so like me".

I loved Amy, she does look twice Laurie's age when you first see them both, but she also worked as a schoolgirl. She was probably the least sympathetic character when the book was written, remember she has to have a "sickly" child to bring out the beauty in her character as I recall....but to a modern audience you can see how determined and capable she is, she's as sympathetic as Jo if not more so.

I thought Laurie was great until after he was married, I was hoping he'd stop stooping over and look more "manly" all of a sudden. I realised that he's very much a boy until then (if not after) and I really didn't get that from the book, probably because I was young myself when I read it. There's a great contrast with the girls and all their dynamism and ambition in so many different ways, but they are so restricted. Then you have this handsome, talented, wealthy boy who really could do anything but he's quite lost, perhaps because he has too much choice, perhaps it's "the Italian in him" aka cultural differences as he's fundamentally European, perhaps it's being rudderless because he's an orphan. A great contrast to the (too) many people in the March family.

I loved the costumes, it's a great challenge to make the costumes of those times look interesting, but I'm fascinated to see how they were wrong, thanks for the video! In reality they probably had three dresses each and a few grey shawls, you couldn't film it like that.

I knew the books inside out about 25 years ago and a lot of it came back, I don't think anyone who didn't know the books would have a chance of understanding the movie. It makes sense to film it assuming the audience would know the books. Then it also livens it up to jump forward and backward in time. I couldn't bear to sit through the story burning and ice skating parts long drawn out.

Deathraystare · 03/01/2022 07:34

I found it a lot more palatable than the ultra sickly sweet, diabetic original. I could not stand the book. Ugh Ugh Ugh.

I remember where I used to work, a woman who was pregnancy came in and said she wanted four girls to name them after the little women characters. Yeuch!

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