Little women (Winona Ryder)

(Amazon UK link)

We have two DVDs with films based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel ‘Little Women’. We watched the 2019 version - updated for a modern audience - in 2020, and I liked it much more than I had expected to. But it was over twenty years since we watched the 1994 version which is rather closer to the original. So we decided to see it again. I am very familiar with the story, my husband much less so as he has never read the books.

On the whole, this is quite true to the original, although inevitably a lot has been cut out. The four March sisters are realistically portrayed: Trini Alvarado is the responsible Meg, and Winona Ryder is the impetuous Jo, who never quite manages to look tidy, and who spends most of her time writing. I thought Beth (Claire Danes) was the least believable of the four; but a lot of her story is removed from the film. Kirsten Dunst is an excellent young Amy; she’s the only sister who has a different actress (Samantha Mathis) playing her as an adult. But then Meg and Jo were older teenagers anyway at the start of the story.