An exuberant, exquisite ‘Little Women’

Louisa May Alcott’s masterpiece “Little Women” was published in 1868. In the last 150 years it has been reincarnated and reimagined as a musical, an opera, a TV miniseries and at last count eight movie adaptations (one set in modern-day India). The Japanese even reworked the novel into an anime series. Talk about inspiration.

The plot is simple on the surface. It’s about four New England sisters taking their first steps into adulthood at the peak of the Civil War. But it is also a fevered story about the relentless passage of time and coming to terms with the idea that nothing, not even the bond of sisterhood, lasts forever. To borrow a line from a far different movie, it’s a story that dreams are made of.

The latest adaptation of “Little Women,” written and directed by Greta Gerwig, finds a way to give equal significance to the voices of author and filmmaker. Gerwig has fashioned an entertaining piece of work that scrapes the rust off the classic and adds a dazzling modern-day approach to the acting, dialogue, editing and photography.

Gerwig’s subject is womanhood, mainly that being a woman in the middle of the American 19th century, especially with a war on, is more complicated than society is willing to believe. Jo March (Saoirse Ronan), the aspiring writer and Alcott’s alter ego, vents her frustration: “Women have got ambition, and they’ve got talent, as well as beauty, and I’m sick of people saying that love is all a woman is fit for!”

Gerwig’s script borrows dialogue from other Alcott novels, rearranges plot events and incorporates ideas from Alcott’s letters. The framework of the movie has a clever visual correlation as Jo lays out the pages of her novel on an attic floor and reassembles them in a new order. The words are less important than dramatizing the spirit and intelligence of the woman who wrote them.

Gerwig’s boldest move, one that will make the purists howl, is to tell the story in non-linear order. The movie opens with the March sisters in their adulthood and then flashes back seven years earlier.

In the main plot, Jo, Amy (Florence Pugh), Meg (Emma Watson) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) grow up under the affectionate wing of their mother (Laura Dern) as they await the return of their father (Bob Odenkirk), a pastor serving as a chaplain in the war. Each shift in the plot’s chronology brings the emotions of these young women full circle.

Gerwig effortlessly manages the overlapping dialogue spoken by the actors in times of disagreement and elation, adding to the movie’s vivid modern feel. The four leading performances feel natural and exultant. As the romantically luckless Teddy Laurence, Timothee Chalamet gives the character the charm of a poet and the sting of a professional flirt.

Gerwig accomplishes what a remake should do. It allows us to experience a familiar story and characters in a new, original way. This “Little Women” is both exuberant and exquisite.