Movie Review: Little Women (2018)

I remember reading Little Women back when I was in school, but it's been quite a while. The 150th anniversary of the novel is this year, and there's now a new film version of Little Women, set in modern times. I have probably seen some of the previous films, but I don't remember any of them, so I went into this version with fresh eyes.

Four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—live with their mother, Marmee, in their childhood home. Their father is off fighting the war (Afghanistan, I believe) so it's just the five of them, and the holidays are approaching. Although the sisters often fight, they're also very close, and Little Women details their adventures, and also their highs and lows, when tragedy hits the family.

I'm going to be honest and say I didn't love this movie. It DOES follow the plot of the original book pretty closely, albeit updating things for 2018, which I liked, because eventually I opened up the Wiki page just to follow along; I found the film to be a little disjointed. The movie mostly focuses on Jo (Sarah Davenport, TV's Stitchers), and we see that she's a writer whose dream is to go to England for college; once her application is rejected, however, she must find a new course of action. Her best friend, Laurie (Lucas Grabeel, High School Musical), eventually wants to be more than just a friend, but she only sees him as a brother; and overall, Jo is very dramatic and everything that happens to her is very dramatic as well.

However, this movie also has some positives: it's definitely a nice family-friendly film (minimal swearing, etc.), and it was interesting to see the plot set in 2018 instead of during the Civil War. The beginning of the film has some humor in it, and the movie started out with a lot of potential, but then started to drag for me.

Maybe see this film. If you are a fan of the original Little Women, it may be worth seeing just to compare the book to it or previous film versions. If you're not a Little Women fan, then you may find the movie to be a little disjointed, like I did; I think the problem is that they tried to cram too many years into one movie (the sisters grow up, one gets married and has children, one gets sick, etc.). Although I overall liked the plot of the film, it's not one to which I can give my highest recommendation, but those looking for a family-friendly movie may enjoy it.

*Disclosure: I was provided a screener of this film to facilitate this review. The opinions expressed here, however, are my own.

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