So, I took my own two ‘little women’ to see the new movie.
The theatre was full of women aged between late thirty and upwards, and apart from my own two twelve year olds, there was only one more young girl close to their age or maybe a bit younger.
I have to say, it made me quite sad. Does no one read the ‘old classics’ anymore? Have they all been rendered ‘obsolete’? Oh (Henry), how times have changed...
But then the movie started and what can I say....
The film started somewhere in the middle of the story and kept jumping back in time to explain events and move the plot forward using flashbacks. However, my feelings were that if you never read the book (or at least saw other film adaptations of it), you will find it all very confusing and hard to follow.
The ending too, felt as if it was rushed for lack of screen time and ended up a bit wishy-washy leaving you wondering if that was the actual ending of Jo’s own love story, or was it the ending she wrote to her book, as her publisher had demanded.
There was also the adding of some other events (at the end), that were never in the actual book, which I felt, tried to relate more to women’s independence in today’s terms in our times, as hinted/reflected in the subtitle of the movie ‘own your story’ which wasn’t really necessary to add or make a special point of as we already knew Jo was a strong and free spirited woman, who could stand on her own two feet in what was at those times very much a ‘man’s world’.
While I do agree and understand that when adapting a book to the screen there will be some ‘creative changes’ which help adapt the story from one medium to another, but why is it that filmmakers these days feel the need to completely ‘reinvent the wheel’ and tamper with a classic book that was quite perfect just as it is?
As for what my ‘little women’ thought about the film?
Well, they didn’t read the book or have seen any of the other film adaptations before going to see the new one, and I ‘sold’ them the film saying that as they loved reading ’Anne of Green Gables’, they would definitely fall in love with ‘Little Women’ too.
However, they found the film to be confusing and were ready to go home halfway through it.
My advice to anyone still tempted to see the new version is make sure you have read the book before seeing this film, and perhaps then you might understand and enjoy this latest film effort.
In Mel Brooks’ immortal words: ’Nice, not thrilling, but nice’.
The theatre was full of women aged between late thirty and upwards, and apart from my own two twelve year olds, there was only one more young girl close to their age or maybe a bit younger.
I have to say, it made me quite sad. Does no one read the ‘old classics’ anymore? Have they all been rendered ‘obsolete’? Oh (Henry), how times have changed...
But then the movie started and what can I say....
The film started somewhere in the middle of the story and kept jumping back in time to explain events and move the plot forward using flashbacks. However, my feelings were that if you never read the book (or at least saw other film adaptations of it), you will find it all very confusing and hard to follow.
The ending too, felt as if it was rushed for lack of screen time and ended up a bit wishy-washy leaving you wondering if that was the actual ending of Jo’s own love story, or was it the ending she wrote to her book, as her publisher had demanded.
There was also the adding of some other events (at the end), that were never in the actual book, which I felt, tried to relate more to women’s independence in today’s terms in our times, as hinted/reflected in the subtitle of the movie ‘own your story’ which wasn’t really necessary to add or make a special point of as we already knew Jo was a strong and free spirited woman, who could stand on her own two feet in what was at those times very much a ‘man’s world’.
While I do agree and understand that when adapting a book to the screen there will be some ‘creative changes’ which help adapt the story from one medium to another, but why is it that filmmakers these days feel the need to completely ‘reinvent the wheel’ and tamper with a classic book that was quite perfect just as it is?
As for what my ‘little women’ thought about the film?
Well, they didn’t read the book or have seen any of the other film adaptations before going to see the new one, and I ‘sold’ them the film saying that as they loved reading ’Anne of Green Gables’, they would definitely fall in love with ‘Little Women’ too.
However, they found the film to be confusing and were ready to go home halfway through it.
My advice to anyone still tempted to see the new version is make sure you have read the book before seeing this film, and perhaps then you might understand and enjoy this latest film effort.
In Mel Brooks’ immortal words: ’Nice, not thrilling, but nice’.
Footnote: This was written back in December 2019, long before Covid19 changed our lives.