Little Women review
There are several moments in Little Women (7,2 on FilmAffinity ) that seem designed exclusively for animated GIFs. You know, those images that have become so popular in recent years on Twitter and other forums and public spaces, showing a couple of seconds of a powerful scene with the character's words subtitled.
Perhaps it's unfair to begin a review of Little Women this way . But it's necessary. Today, more than ever, cinema has become an overly self-aware platform. The task of scrutinizing a film's content without paying attention to the nature of its surrounding context, to the tastes, likes, and dislikes of the society in which we must place it, has become impossible.
Still from Little Women, nominated for best film at the 2020 Oscars.
With half an hour left before Little Women concludes, its protagonist says the following to her mother (actually, to the viewer):
"I feel like women have minds and souls as well as just hearts. And they have ambition and talent as well as just beauty. And I'm so sick of people saying that women are only made for love... I'm so sick!... but I'm so alone.
Despite the sudden burst of honesty that ends her speech, Jo could have spared us the tantrum. The film's premise had been made perfectly clear in the previous hour and forty minutes. The same goes for the negotiation of the contract clauses for the Louisa May Alcott book that gives the film its title. "What an independent and Erin Brockovich-like young woman we've got here!" they seem to want us to think.
Little Women is an interesting reimagining of a film that had already been made four times and whose television series dates back to 2018. However, the 2020 Little Women is a constant internal struggle between freshness and cliché, renewal and tradition. In other words: it could have been worse.
But it could also have been better.
Little Women and the Oscars (and machismo and racism)
Despite The Wolf of Wall Street, despite Gravity, in 2015 the Oscar for Best Picture went to 12 Years a Slave, by Steve McQueen. Three years later, after the explosion of the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, Moonlight (6,8 on FilmAffinity ) was a smash hit. It makes absolutely no difference: the echoes of racism are once again hovering over these 2020 Oscars, where—how dare they?—there is only one Black nominee in the Best Actor categories (and it's not Mahershala Ali ). Racist assholes.
Although he is not nominated for anything, it would be unwise to rule out the possibility that Mahershala Ali could win an Oscar this year.
We find a similar mess with the feminist category. It doesn't matter at all that the now-forgotten * The Shape of Water * swept the awards in 2018. The Oscars are sexist . Deep down, they're not just racist anymore. Last year was the year of * Green Book * (a film that seems like it came from the catalog of trashy afternoon programming on Antena 3). Although, if we think about it calmly, there isn't a single Black director nominated this year: the Oscars are racist and sexist. And don't even get us started on the absence of roles for people with disabilities on this year's list of nominees.
The Oscars are racist, sexist, and offensive to the entire disabled community . Not to mention that environmentally irresponsible scene where Jo March from Little Women throws papers into the river.
Are you seeing what we mean? It's all pretty disgusting, to be honest. And this is the atmosphere into which we have to place a film whose original title sums it all up: Little Women.
Little Women: constant dance between innovation and tradition
Everything in Little Women unfolds as expected in a 2020 film about a society where women spend their days doing housework and figuring out what dowry best suits their needs in a husband. We readily applaud the boldness of its script , whose structure (besides starting at the end) skillfully interweaves the contrast between the warm, joyful past and the blue (and hungry) present. But we find it odd that, shortly after the end, certain characters speak directly to the camera. And so it goes, to a certain extent.
We embrace with even greater enthusiasm the breathtaking visual beauty of each and every scene. Little Women truly deserves the Oscar for Best Cinematography. Ballroom dances, beach outings, romantic portrait painting in the garden… every frame of Little Women seems to have been lifted from an art gallery alongside the great masters of the 19th century.
What cinematography. Seriously. By far, the most exhilarating aspect of this film is its stunning visual beauty. Saoirse Ronan is, quite simply, the most promising actress of the moment. She's effortlessly landed roles in the Oscar-winning Brooklyn (2015) and Lady Bird (2018, the fantastic debut feature from Greta Gerwig , director of Little Women). Timothée Chalamet (Call Me by Your Name) possesses a unique charm capable of opening any door he desires. Laura Dern , not content with her outstanding performance in Marriage Story , is spectacular. And at this point, there's little more we need to say about Meryl Streep.
Still from Little Women, nominated for the 2020 Oscars for Best Picture, among other categories.
The only thing that's lacking is everything else. But make no mistake. It's not a catastrophic failure. It's simply the absence of that final touch of polish that every film needs to achieve lasting recognition . Little Women is an entertaining film, and its nominations are well-deserved. Period costumes are a big draw in Hollywood. Barring any surprises, it will likely win the Oscar for production design.
Except surprise.
At Postposmo, we are interested, to a certain extent, in social cinema. Writing about the work of Ken Loach is not among our priorities . Social cinema is an interesting but inherently flawed phenomenon: its consciousness-raising component has an expiration date once the prescriptions that define its nature are surpassed. Over the decades, the product acquires more documentary than narrative value. Social cinema sidelines its mission to entertain in favor of prioritizing its prescriptive function regarding the reality it seeks to rectify.
Parasite has taught us that it's possible to raise awareness and entertain. Little Women, too. Although the balance in Greta Gerwig's film is somewhat less successful. It has too many scenes where the film shamelessly takes a look at itself.