LITTLE WOMEN

 

FOUR STARS - Uplifting

 

          Already a valuable novel exploring gender issues by Louisa May Alcott, Denise DiNovi’s LITTLE WOMEN brings those issues to the big screen.  Set within a Civil War family with the father and only male absent from the home, LITTLE WOMEN explores the relationships of an exemplary mother, her four daughters, and their struggle in an imperfect world.  

          The second daughter, Jo March (Winona Ryder), is the recorder of their experiences.  Blessed, or plagued, with the dream of becoming a writer but living in a time when the teacher of the local school believes that educating women is as profitable as “educating a cat,” Jo’s (Ryder’s) struggle fuels her creative abilities.

          Writing from a place of pain when her younger sister Beth (Claire Danes) dies, Jo (Ryder) records the women’s lives from a naturally idealized point of view.  Her mother, Marmee (Susan Sarandon) is a woman of principle, conviction, compassion and wisdom.  Not only ahead of her time in her political views, we discover that she is also a “transcendentalist” in her spiritual views, with a strong knowledge of Biblical wisdom. 

          True to her spiritual beliefs that there is an ideal spiritual reality transcending this physical world and that our intuition can help us live this spiritual ideal, Marmee (Sarandon) actively shapes her daughter’s lives.

          Marmee (Sarandon) teaches her daughters that what matters in a woman’s life is not her appearance, but her “mind, kindness, humor and moral courage.”  She espouses her belief that women have the same needs as men, allowing her daughters to exert themselves actively as would young boys.

          She is amused at social class mores and their clothing demands on women but is passionate about her daughter’s education and political and social awareness.    Her spiritual presence in the home is powerfully effective.

          Her daughters, with an unusual confidence and natural joy, share their mother’s ideals.  They give their Christmas dinner to a poorer family nearby.  They speak up on women’s rights and the evil of child labor and slavery.  They believe the world can become a better place.

          But it is also this spiritual belief that increases the conflict of the women with their world.  Jo (Ryder) in explaining herself to a shy German professor, Friedrick Behr (Gabriel Byrne), laments the fact that she herself is “hopelessly flawed.”   Her struggle exists not only with an imperfect world, but with the fact that she herself is imperfect.

          It is this insight and the loving guidance of Friedrick (Byrne) which allow  Jo (Ryder) to get in touch with her true self.   In agreement with the Biblical teaching that all of us are flawed and yet, with God’s help, can in fact transcend the brokenness of this world, Friedrick (Byrne) encourages Jo (Ryder) to accept both her flawed humanity and her transcendent spiritual ideals.

          Symbolic of her ability to do so was her freedom to write from the heart.  Previously her writing  focused on the negative, even violent part of life and of that part of herself she was rejecting.  When she accepted her entire self, she was able to weave both the flawed and noble parts of humanity into a beautiful whole.

          When writing from the heart, Jo (Ryder) demonstrates a family in which its faith and love is a sustaining presence throughout life.   Though imperfect and having to struggle with sorrow and joy, manipulation and jealousies, the women live their lives with dignity.

          Though living in a male-dominated larger world, their female-dominated family world was a source of strength and self-esteem, and yet incomplete.  Just as the larger world needed the presence of women as equals, the family world needed a brother.   Teddy Lawrence (Christian Bale) becomes that necessary brother.

          It is in the person of Teddy (Bale) that the inner world of the ideal family demonstrates its flaws.  Jealousy, manipulation, unrequited love all play themselves out in Teddy’s presence in the sister’s lives.  In a scene demonstrating the inner struggle of many creative persons, Jo (Ryder) rejects the marriage proposal of Teddy (Bale), and in tears is told by her mother, “You are a person of extraordinary gifts, how can you expect to live an ordinary life.  Embrace your liberty.”  

          It is in the person of Teddy’s grandfather that we are included in an emotional scene of understanding of what causes flaws in people.  Mr. Lawrence, a crotchety old man who dislikes young girls, is softened by the illness of Beth (Danes) and gives her a piano.  In the gift we hear him explain that he should have given it to her years ago when his own daughter had died.  The generous gift now healed the pain of an angry and lonely man, as well as fulfilled the young girl’s desires.

          The greatness of LITTLE WOMEN is in the final analysis not only of its presenting of gender  issues, but of its presenting of human issues.  It is neither males nor females who must deal with their own flawed selves.  It is both genders who must work toward justice and liberty and social equity.  And it is all people who must find the love and bonds which create a sustaining family life.