“I’d rather be a free spinster and paddle my own canoe. ” – Jo March
Number of Times Seen – 1 (13 Jan 2020)
Brief Synopsis – Classic retelling of the story of the four Marsh sisters during and after the Civil War and how life changes them and their attitudes along the way.
My Take on it – I’ve never been the biggest fan of these type of movies and after having already seen the two other film adaptations of this story, I wasn’t sure the world needed yet another one.
Boy, was I wrong.
This film takes the classic tale and does so nice things with it in order to help make it even more engaging.
The choice to tell this story in a non-linear fashion actually adds to the impact of things and makes it more enjoyable to follow.
This is probably the best adaptation of this classic tale (so far) due to the way that it makes the characters and story feel more accessible and relevant to modern society and thought.
The characters are all presented in ways that help make them even more sympathetic to watch and it’s easy to care for them and all that transpires around them during this story.
The cast is also stellar here ad that adds even more to the weight of this tale.
Saoirse Ronan stands out in the lead role and was quite deserving of her Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her performance.
Bottom Line – Nice retelling of this classic story and the non-linear approach actually helps make things even more enjoyable to watch. This is probably the best adaptation of this novel (so far) and they manage to make the characters quite sympathetic to watch due to the way that they present things which helps the audience care more about everything that happens to them. The cast of this film is amazing and is led by Ronan who is exquisite in the lead role. She was deservingly nominated for an Oscar for her work here. Recommended!
MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – After finding out that the adaptation was in the works, Saoirse Ronan reached out to Greta Gerwig and told her she decided she was going to play Jo March. Gerwig was initially hesitant to cast Ronan after having just worked with her on Lady Bird (2017), but after realizing that more or less casting herself was a very Jo thing to do, Gerwig sent Ronan an email that said “Yes, you’re Jo.” (From IMDB)
Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)
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MovieRob 
Agree. Excellent adaptation. Glad that Gerwig was recognized for her screenplay by the Writers Branch of the Academy – even while being overlooked by the Directors. And agree that it fleshed out the characters quite well. Having seen most of the earlier adaptations (and a particularly excellent one done by British TV recently as a miniseries) – for the first time – I was far more sympathetic to Amy and thought Laurie was a bit of a jerk.
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Thank you for your review, Rob. We saw the movie over the weekend and loved it. Great performances, writing and cinematography. Loved the music score by Alexander Desplat, who is such a pre-eminent film composer.
I love the Katherine Hepburn version but this version is along side it. I really enjoyed the non-linear approach to the story telling.
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