Little Women (2019)

It's often a lovely experience, to sit with Gerwig's ardor, to feel the warming beam of her cast radiating off the screen. I left the theater with eyes brimming. I only wish that the film's spell was cast a bit less briskly...

If there were any remaining doubts that Greta Gerwig is a major talent in American cinema, put them to rest now.

There's nothing little about Greta Gerwig's rich, warm, bustlingly populated and passionately devoted new tribute to Louisa May Alcott's classic novel of sisterhood.

As one might hope, Gerwig's interpretation does right by the material, sticking to the original period and setting and assembling a dream cast to play the March siblings.

Gerwig has taken a treasured perennial of popular American literature and reshaped it for a new generation, which should give the captivating film a long shelf life.

The film works because Gerwig manages to re-emphasise some new aspect of the profound connection between these characters in every new scene.

If this isn't the Little Women you remember, either on page or screen, that's understandable. But it's likely the one you felt, and that's more important.

It doesn't just brim with life, it brims with ideas about happiness, economic realities, and what it means to push against or to hew to the expectations laid out for one's gender.

[T]his is a film in love with its characters' passions, a rich and effortlessly vibrant examination of the four March "little women" and the ways... they're practically bursting with the innocent it's-happening-right-now joy of being young and alive.

If you can keep a handhold on the plot, Little Women is a heartfelt, uplifting movie you can happily lose yourself in, offering a respite from our own hard times.