The Cinematheque

“Armstrong maneuvers Alcott’s prose with sympathy and a cool head … She likes to prick at convention, especially when it comes to the crossroads of femininity and feminism; it’s what makes her a particularly good contemporary match for the book.”

Manohla Dargis, LA Weekly

More than any other version of Little Women, this film, directed by Gillian Armstrong (My Brilliant Career) and shot around British Columbia, emphasizes the adolescence of the March sisters as not so much a sequence of events, but a rich association of emotionally potent memories. Starring a zeitgeist-worthy cast of talent—including Winona Ryder (Jo), Kirsten Dunst (Amy), Claire Danes (Beth), Christian Bale (Laurie), and Susan Sarandon (Marmee)—this portrait of a family across four years is intimate, lively, and full of inventive staging. You can see this in the first meeting of the March family and Laurie, the slightly forlorn boy next door; Jo’s theatrical rehearsals; or the social gatherings that reveal new aspects of each young woman’s character. Little Women​’s telling of the bittersweet process of partings, reunions, and artistic maturation marks its 30th anniversary this year, a distance that perhaps only deepens the film’s skillful evocation of passing time.

“There is an extraordinary warmth in this film … Armstrong’s distinctive way of filming and showing people has emotional rewards … [The] flow of small incidents rather than grand, narrative upheavals gives Little Women a dreamy quality of reverie.”

Adrian Martin, The Age (Melbourne)