Winona is the Best Jo and Other ‘Little Women’ Opinions
By Courtney Woods
As a rule, I don’t have favorite movies. But if I had to choose one to cuddle up to at the family hearth as my chilled fingers crochet babywear for the flu-ridden single mom next door, it would be Little Women.
Here are four reasons to savor this cinema gem like a handful of confiscated limes.
Both the 2019 and 1994 version will do
It’s rare that a remake holds up to its original, but Greta Gerwig’s 2019 version starring Saoirse, Emma, Florence and Timothée has all the same star power with, for some, a more satisfying ending.
Personally I adore the 1994 version, starring Winona Ryder as Jo, Christian Bale as Laurie, and Kirsten Dunst as Amy. It injects ‘90s-style sticky-sweet romanticism into each scene, marrying off each living March sister with a suitable partner who will bring comfort to their grieving hearts.
But Gerwig, whom I trust wholly with the future of the feminist film agenda, turns the Little Women plotline on its head. We see these marriages as author Louisa May Alcott herself undoubtedly saw them: as an economic necessity. Plainly put, women of the American Civil War era needed a man at their side to survive, just as our brilliant but tragically female protagonist needed a happy ending for her novel to sell.
Both versions rock, so if you need a fiery female flick fix, be frugal and choose the one that’s free on your streaming platforms. It’s what Marmee would do.
It’s the best Christmas movie
It’s a lesser-known fact that this film (especially the 1994) is basically better in every way than It’s a Wonderful Life. You still get tinsel-laden scenes in a drafty middle-class living room, scored by children’s piano playing and directed by a watchful matriarch wondering where in the hell her husband is.
But with Little Women there is much more hair-braiding. The falling-through-the-ice scene is so much more nuanced. The longing for hot-cross buns is palpable, as are the embraces around the matriarch’s rocking chair as her children curl into the most adorable tableau. And the poor that need rescuing (the family down the block) are in danger of actual starvation on a freezing winter morning. They make George Bailey’s bank problems seem whiny white-guy surmountable.
Bonus that with Little Women, you won’t have to cringe through a hero’s emotionally abusive tirades on his own family members on Christmas morning… just Jo losing her mind over a burned-up manuscript, which seems absolutely reasonable!
It works in multiple genres
Love a period drama? Jo and Laurie’s tortured romance in 1860s Massachusetts will have you lopping your hair off despite yourself.
Seeking a Bildungsroman? Alcott gave us a gift in Jo, who has to choose between a life everyone expects of her and every young woman of the time, or being the brave ceiling-breaker a new generation of women need.
Want to marvel at the simple joys of life via a coming-of-age flick? Join the March sisters as they don homemade costumes, pick snowball fights, and freak out about curling irons.
The performances are dazzling
Whom among us can hold in their tears in the presence of Laura Dern and Susan Sarandon as Marmee? Their portrayal as struggling military moms doing community-organizing, taking breaks only to rush to the side of their own dying children, melt the screen. (Speaking of tears, both Claire Danes and Eliza Scanlen as Beth practically yank them from our eyeballs.)
Even the 1949 and 1933 versions of Little Women managed to cast delectable stars in delightful performances, including Katherine Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Lawford, and Margaret O’Brien.
But no Jo can hold a Victorian beeswax candle to Winona’s — a truth that shall be settled here and now. Move over Ronan, because Ryder can rock a pixie cut like no other (“Jo! Your one beauty!”). She can cut a sister down with her menacing glare and manuscript-less fingertips (“I’m gonna kill you!” commencing a nightgowned strangulation). And her brown doe eyes and honeyed voice bring us back to harmonic center, forgiving harm done, reminding us of why family matters and why we are in fact watching this film (“I could never love anyone as I love my sisters.”) Swoon!
Little Women may not be your favorite film to darn socks to, but that’s because you are dead inside.
Courtney Woods, a Chicago-based writer and social worker, is Marmee to two little women of her own. She hasn’t freaked out about a curling iron since 1992.