Little Women (1994) vs. Little Women (2019)

A battle in which we all win

My first time reading Little Women is seared in my memory. I was in the third grade and the Winona Ryder film was about to come out, and people were excited. I read a giant, hardcover library edition to prepare.

It was so heavy.

This was by far the longest book I’d ever read, and I loved the challenge (even then, I was a girl who loved goals). It wasn’t challenging to understand—Little Women is a fairly straightforward story, although some of the themes weren’t really relevant to my life as a third-grader. But the sheer length of it, and the amount of Accelerated Reader points I received! It was unheard of.

I loved it, and upon finishing it, my mom and I saw the movie in the theatre. This is notable because my mom is a verified movie hater—she’ll watch whatever reality show is on about vet surgeries, but she simply will not plan to sit down and watch an entire film. The woman doesn’t care about cinema. So although we’ve seen a few movies together as a family, this remains the only movie my mom and I have seen together, just the two of us.

To say it made a big impression on me is putting it mildly. Little Women, as a story, encompasses so many of the joys and trials of life as a family—love, death, motherhood, war, etc. The film does all that, too, and it also includes something that was relevant to my interests then and now: Christian Bale being super hot. It’s hard to even separate my love of this story from my love of Christian Bale as Laurie. For a certain type of literary girl, Christian Bale and his floppy hair and his little vests were like Leonardo DiCaprio in Titanic: iconic.

Little Women (1994), much like You’ve Got Mail, is an all-season film, but also like You’ve Got Mail, there’s something special about watching it around this time of year. The book and the film start with Christmas, and there are so many snowy, festive, cozy scenes. As I was listening to the soundtrack the other day, I got to thinking about how I never thought there would be another Little Women adaptation that could even attempt to dislodge the 1994 film from the place it holds in my heart.

And then…Greta Gerwig came along. I love her 2019 adaptation, and truthfully I don’t think either film is demonstrably better. They’re both just so good. But because I’ve been thinking about it, and because I started this newsletter as a place to put all the things I can’t stop thinking about, here’s my attempt at deciding, once and for all, which is the better film.

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• The 1994 Little Women has Winona Ryder in what I truly think might be her best role. She was born to play Jo. She has that perfect mix of bluster and vulnerability.

• The 2019 film has Saoirse Ronan, who also somehow perfectly embodies Jo’s spirit.

• Both versions are directed by women (Gillian Armstrong in 1994, Greta Gerwig in 2019). Not to be a gender essentialist, but I’m not sure I’d be interested in seeing a Little Women film that was directed by a man.

• The 1994 version is warm, which is a quality I don’t think gets enough credit in film. Warmth is one of those things that seems like it should be easy to transmit, but it doesn’t always show up on screen when it should. Saying something is warm sounds like you’re saying it’s cheesy or saccharine, but that’s not what I mean. Gillian Armstrong directed a film that, even when it might feel a little formal, always feels human.

• The 2019 version is interesting. I’ve been a Greta Gerwig fan since she was playing a trumpet in a bathtub in Hannah Takes the Stairs, and it has been so interesting to see her transition into making her own, much bigger films. I remember someone complaining about how the characters talk over each other so much in the opening scene, and yes, this does lack that formality that’s so present in the 1994 version! But it’s dynamic and exciting to see those same lines acted in a totally different way. And no one even plays the trumpet in a bathtub!

• The 1994 soundtrack is full of absolute bangers.

• The 2019 soundtrack is also full of absolute bangers.

• The 1994 version features Claire Danes, as Beth, draping herself over a piano and saying “I feel so strange…” which is what I like to say when I’m sick.

• The 1994 has Susan Sarandon and she’s the epitome of the warmth I mentioned earlier.

• The 2019 version has Laura Dern and she really elevates Marmee into something much more complex.

• The 1994 version has Kirsten Dunst, who is so good at being a brat. However, is she responsible for an entire generation of women hating Amy? If so, that’s true power.

• The 2019 version has Miss Flo herself, Florence Pugh. I can’t fault Samantha Mathis, who really didn’t have a lot to work with as adult Amy in the 1994 version, but Florence turns Amy into a sympathetic and full character.

• The 1994 version has Christian Bale.

• The 2019 version has Timothee Chalamet, and while this movie did make me think, “Okay, I kind of get it…” I’m just too old.

• The 1994 version makes it very hard to understand why Jo doesn’t choose Laurie, because Winona and Christian had chemistry. Also, I think Christian Bale is a large part of why people (it’s me, I’m people) had such a hard time accepting that they didn’t end up together. It’s hard to imagine turning down Christian Bale and that hair.

• The 2019 version makes it much clearer why Jo and Laurie don’t work well together, and why Jo wants something else entirely. It also makes Laurie and Amy make sense as a couple.

• The 1994 version has Eric Stoltz as Mr. Brooke, which was the start of yet another formative crush for me. I love his weird little hat and his weird little glasses. I also love that they treat him keeping Meg’s glove as, like, such a scandalous thing. Like he’s some perv for keeping her glove.

• I don’t even remember who played Mr. Brooke in the 2019 version, but it sure as heck wasn’t Eric Stoltz!

• The 1994 version has John Neville as Mr. Laurence, and I do love him in this role. Did you know he was also on The X-Files? A fun fact!

• The 2019 has Chris Cooper as Mr. Laurence and he has a scene that makes me cry!

• The 1994 version has the superior Meg. Trini Alvarado is perfect in this role, and that’s coming from someone who wants to be a Jo but is definitely a Meg.

• I think Emma Watson was miscast in the 2019 version. I consistently forget she was part of it.

• The 2019 version has Meryl Streep!

• I don’t remember who played Mr. March in the 1994 version, but the 2019 version has Bob Odenkirk.

• The 1994 version has Gabriel Byrne as Friedrich Bhaer, which started (you guessed it) another formative crush for me. However, I don’t think he and Winona have any chemistry in this role—does she just not have chemistry with older men??

• The 2019 version makes Professor Bhaer hot and makes his relationship with Jo at least a little more central. At the very least, you understand why she’d want to marry him!

• The 2019 version has that scene where Jo sees her book being printed. It’s such a long scene, interspersed with Jo carrying a cake across a seemingly endless lawn. You see her book pages getting trimmed and her cover being glued on as you see her sisters join her, all of them with their own families, all of them together. There’s so much movement and then stillness—a shot of her book cover as the piano keys plink slowly. Jo has it all—her family and her writing—and then there’s a flashback, reminding you of what she doesn’t have. Beth. It’s a perfect scene!

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After great internal debate, I’ve decided that the best Little Women adaptation is…both of them. As if I could ever pick a favorite! The thing about Little Women, and the reason why I think the book and the films have held up over the years, and why the story will keep getting retold, is that it means different things to you at different ages. As a small child, I was mostly interested in the drama of it all. Amy burning that book! The romance! Beth dying! And as someone with brothers, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by this world of sisters.

As I got older, though, it became a different, quieter story. It was about family, and the pain of growing up, knowing that you’re only ever growing away from your siblings and your parents. Even if all of you are still living, you’ll never be together again the way you were as children.

I haven’t read it since becoming a mom, but I know it will have even more to say to me now. It’s a beautiful book and both films highlight different aspects of what I love about it. The 1994 version is my forever comfort watch, and the 2019 version speaks to my adult self. And, once again, the 1994 version has Christian Bale.

Let me know your favorite version! There’s really no wrong answer. Please forgive any typos because right after I sent out last week’s newsletter, I got sick and I’m still kind of sick? I don’t know a parent who isn’t dealing with nonstop illness right now. Basically, it hasn’t been my most productive couple of weeks but I did feel the urgent need to get these thoughts out now. Hopefully I’ll see you back here next week.