LITTLE WOMEN is the story of four sisters and their mother. They
have a father, but he remains pretty much a non-person through the
entire show. The movie is set in Concord, Mass. in what appears to be
somewhere between say 1800 and 1890. Eventually in the middle of the
movie we are finally told that the show is firmly set in the 1860s
because the missing and almost never mentioned father is off fighting a
war. [And he probably thought they missed him a lot and appreciated he
was risking his life to save his country!]
Did I say the show had four sisters and their mother? I lied. It
has four saints who are sisters, and who all live with their even more
sainted mother. These five perfect females have a few males around
them at times for decoration, but it is the women's show.
The movie is populated with all of the latest heart throbs from
Hollywood (Winona Ryder, Trini Alvarado, Samantha Mathis, Kirsten
Dunst, Gabriel Byrne, Christian Bale, and Eric Stoltz) and with Susan
Sarandon in the Mother Teresa role. The acting is all incredibly
shallow, but this is a fault of the script they were given. The
characters are two dimensional stick figures. They do absolutely no
wrong.
If they had made them more believable and less sugary sweet, one
could have cared about them when tragedy struck. As it was, I just
felt like the script was being manipulative. Yes, maybe this is a
problem with the book as well. Frankly, I do not remember the novel
that well.
Another smaller irritant was the role of the mother saint. It
seemed like half of her dialog were sermons on the need for female
equality. I had no problem with what she was saying, but it was
delivered so preachy that it seemed stilted and unreal. I found myself
wondering if the book gave this subject so much emphasis or if this was
a little revisionist writing.
On the good side, you have never seen more lovely scenes of New
England snow (actually filmed in Victoria, Canada). Curier and Ives
could not have done it better. The cinematography inside was equally
stunning with wonderful warm candlelight glow yet bright enough to be
able to see things well. Finally, I loved the last minute of the show.
The outdoor images there were striking and almost moving.
The movie runs way too long at 1:50. I lost track of how many
times I looked at my watch wondering how much longer I had to sit there
and endure it. It is rated PG but should have been G since there is no
sex, nudity, violence or even a single gosh darn. The only reason for
the PG rating is that some of the themes (sickness and death) are more
mature. I do not recommend this show to anyone. Nevertheless, I
suspect there is a large audience for this movie especially among girls
from say 10 to 16. I give it * 1/2 strictly for the setting and the
cinematography.
Copyright © 1996 Steve Rhodes
