Rating: - Over the mysteries of female life there is drawn a veil best left undisturbed
Little Women is based on the 1868 book by Louisa May Alcott, that was in turn based on her own family and sisters. Alcott was a daughter of noted Transcendentalist Amos Bronson Alcott and Abigail May Alcott. She had three sisters: one elder (Anna Alcott Pratt) and two younger (Elizabeth Sewall Alcott and Abigail May Alcott Nieriker). The family moved to Boston in 1834 or 1835 where her father established an experimental school and joined the Transcendental Club with Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in New England in the early to middle 19th century. Transcendentalism began as a protest against the general state of culture and society at the time. Among transcendentalists' core beliefs was an ideal spiritual state that 'transcends' the physical and empirical and is only realized through the individual's intuition, rather than through the doctrines of established religions. The best known work coming out of this movement was Thoreau's Walden; or Life in the Woods. Walden Pond itself is shown in Little Women in a scene where young Amy (Kirsten Dunst) is ice skating and falls in it. Talk about your skating on thin ice...

Jo March (Winona Ryder) is the second oldest sister, and she is clearly the one modeled after Louisa May Alcott herself. She is an aspiring writer who writes stories and plays that the sisters act out. This is a perfect vehicle for Winona Ryder, whose own unconventional upbringing and alternative views on private property are mirrored by the March family:

Josephine 'Jo' March: If lack of attention to personal finances is a mark of refinement, then I say the Marches must be the most elegant family in Concord!

Amy March is played by two actresses, as in the first part she is just a child (a young Kirsten Dunst), but later she grows up to be a painter (Samantha Mathis). The young Amy is quite a scene stealer, and like Sheridan's Mrs. Malaprop, she sometimes makes up or misuses words, to comic effect:

Younger Amy March: We've been expectorating you for hours!

Meanwhile, scion of the prosperous Laurence family, and therefore known as Laurie (Christian Bale), wonders aloud to his tutor (Eric Stolz) what exactly transpires within the neighbors' cloistered household:

John Brooke: Over the mysteries of female life there is drawn a veil best left undisturbed.

But young Laurie can't really leave the veil undisturbed, try as he might:

Jo: [as Jo and Laurie dance awkwardly at Belle Gardner's ball] I'm sorry! Meg always makes me take the gentleman's part at home! It's a shame you don't know the lady's part!

At one point, there is an epidemic of scarlet fever, and Amy is sent away to live with relatives to escape exposure:

Amy: I don't wanna die. I've never even been kissed. I've waited my whole to be kissed, and what if I miss it?
Laurie: I tell you what. I promise to kiss you before you die.

Though he becomes very close to them all, he is in love with Jo. But it is complicated, as she has him firmly ensconsed in the friend bag.

Laurie: I have loved you since the moment I clamped eyes on you. What could be more reasonable than to marry you?
Jo March: We'd kill each other.
Laurie: Nonsense!
Jo March: Neither of us can keep our temper-...
Laurie: I can, unless provoked.
Jo March: We're both stupidly stubborn, especially you. We'd only quarrel!
Laurie: I wouldn't!
Jo March: You can't even propose without quarreling.

He isn't going to take that without a fight, or a quarrel, more like it:

Laurie: Someday you'll find a man, a good man, and you'll love him, and marry him, and live and die for him. And I'll be hanged if I stand by and watch.

Jo is unsatisfied with her life and so Marmee March (Susan Sarandon) (and who better to play such a role?), marvelous matriarch of the March menangerie, sends her off:

Marmee March: Oh, Jo. Jo, you have so many extraordinary gifts; how can you expect to lead an ordinary life? You're ready to go out and - and find a good use for your talent. Tho' I don't know what I shall do without my Jo. Go, and embrace your liberty. And see what wonderful things come of it.

In New York she meets a lot of interesting people foremost of whom is a handsome professor from Germany, Friedrich Bhaer (Gabriel Byrne). He takes her to see Georges Bizet's opera The Pearl Fishers, and while sitting in their vantage point perched high in the rafters backstage he translates for her:

Friedrich: Your heart understood mine. In the depth of the fragrant night, I listened with ravished soul to your beloved voice. Your heart understood mine.

Of course though he is merely translating the opera, the words are also meant for Jo as well. He is a professor of philosophy, and he encourages her writing, but he feels like she is capable of more. When shown some of her work intended for a commercial audience he tells her so:

Friedrich: [having read Jo's latest book] There is *nothing* in this of the woman I am privileged to know.

He may be on to something. Jo is quite bursting with inspiration:

Jo: Late At night my mind would come alive with voices and stories and friends as dear to me as any in the real world. I gave myself up to it, longing for transformation.

More professorial advice:

Friedrich Bhaer: You must write from the depths of your soul!

Meanwhile Amy goes off to Europe with Aunt March to study painting. Laurie is also there, studying music, and the two meet:

Amy: Have you heard from Jo? She has befriended a German professor.
Laurie: I envy her happiness. I envy his happiness. I envy John Brooke for marrying Meg. I hate Fred Vaughn. And if Beth had a lover I would despise him too. Just as you have always known that you would never marry a pauper, I have always known that I belong to the March family.
Amy: I will not be loved for my family...

It is complictated, isn't it? As Professor Bhaer tells Jo while watching the opera:

Jo: What's going to happen?
Friedrich: The inevitable.

I thought I wasn't going to be able to enjoy this movie as it is intended for children, and female ones at that, but it was very entertaining. I wondered if some of the political issues had been shoehorned in by Winona and Sarandon, but looking into the background of author Alcott, those elements would have been there in the original book if Alcott had the freedoms we enjoy today. It is a prime example of where a story works on two levels simultaneously, with something for the kids, but also something for adults to ponder. Great period costumes and lush cinematography, especially the winter New England tableau. Interesting to see a young Kirsten Dunst, before Spiderman, as well as Christian Bale before he donned the Batman cape and cowl. As an interesting aside, there is a movie of the next book in the March family saga, Little Men. Here the character of Friedrich Bhaer was played by Christopher Sarandon, who divorced Susan but she kept his last name since then.

The Alcott family reminded me a bit of The Brontë sisters, who used to write their own little books and dramas, and then went on to produce such classic works of fiction as Charlotte Brontë's Jane Ayre and Emily Brontë's superb Wuthering Heights.

The film is dedicated to two persons, one of whom is Polly Klaas, the 12-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her Petaluma, California, home in 1993 and later found murdered. Winona Ryder, much of whose youth was spent in Petaluma, joined in the highly publicized search effort and made a number of emotional appeals for the child's safe return. Little Women was Polly's favorite book.

Films of Susan Sarandon

Dead Man Walking (1995) .... Sister Helen Prejean
Thelma & Louise (1991) .... Louise
Pretty Baby (1978) .... Hattie
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (25th Anniversary Edition) (1975) .... Janet Weiss

Films of Winona Ryder

A Scanner Darkly (2006) .... Donna Hawthorne
Reality Bites (10th Anniversary Edition) (1994) .... Lelaina Pierce
Heathers (1989) .... Veronica Sawyer

Films of Christian Bale

Equilibrium (2002) .... John Preston
Velvet Goldmine (1998) .... Arthur Stuart
Swing Kids (1993) .... Thomas Berger

Friedrich Bhaer: You must write from the depths of your soul!

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