In their own ways, each of the March sisters corresponds with an Alcott. “We really lived most of it and if it succeeds that will be the reason of it,” Louisa May Alcott wrote in her journal after the book was finished. Louisa May Alcott based Jo on herself-and Little Women on her own life.Īlcott wrote Little Women during a 10-week spree, drawing almost entirely from her life growing up with three sisters in Concord, MA. Gerwig weaves flashbacks with present-day moments, a reflection on the way every interaction with loved ones is charged with history. Instead of proceeding linearly like most adaptations, the action kicks off when the March sisters-Meg ( Emma Watson), Jo ( Saoirse Ronan), Beth (Eliza Scanlen), and Amy ( Florence Pugh)-are already young women. More than a faithful retelling of Alcott’s novel, Gerwig’s soaring, Oscar-nominated movie is faithful to Alcott’s life-and her legacy as a woman ahead of her time.įrom the very first scene, Gerwig’s Little Women breaks with precedent. Yet the latest film adaptation of Little Women, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, stands apart from the multiple movies, mini-series, and plays that came before it. Since its publication in 1868, Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women has been adapted countless times.

Little Women was nominated for six Oscars in 2020, including Best Picture.

“I wanted to give Louisa May Alcott an ending she might have liked,' Gerwig explained to.

Gerwig significantly changed the book's original ending-and *spoiler alert* told us why in an interview.

Little Women, written and directed by Greta Gerwig, hit theaters on December 25.A pause, and then, she opens it onto a disorderly room. “In the half-light of a dim hallway, she exhales and prepares, her head bowed like a boxer about to go into the ring,” Gerwig writes. Jo (played by Saoirse Ronan), as “Little Women” readers are aware, isn’t known for being hesitant, which Gerwig’s next lines make clear. “ JO MARCH, our heroine, hesitates,” are the first words of Gerwig’s script.

Unlike Alcott’s novel, which begins with the March sisters as children, Gerwig’s “Little Women” starts in the present, with them launching their adult lives. They’re distinguished in the screenplay’s text by red typeface (the past) and black (the present). “Little Women” has two timelines: the past, which begins in winter 1861, and the present, which begins in fall 1868. To give her film an epic scope - which it has - Gerwig drew from Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Alcott’s life and letters, and her own (seamlessly incorporated) original material. Greta Gerwig’s “ Little Women,” which she wrote and directed for Sony Pictures, is one of the great film achievements of the year.

Little women alcott