greencap’s review published on Letterboxd:
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t too sure that I was going to enjoy this movie on this watch considering this year: the way my taste has shifted the amount of movies I’ve watched since, and the increasing levels to which I have completely spoiled myself with some of grandest and most beautiful works of art I have ever had the blessing of experiencing...and I can say in full earnest that I still love this just as much, but in a different way.
I observed something this time around that I had always known but never really pinned down, and that is that there is nothing about this movie on paper that really resonates with me. On paper, it’s just a fabulous script that took the spool of golden yarn source material and gently unfurled it. There are several absolutely fantastic characters here (Jo and Laurie of course, and definitely Amy, but Mr. Laurence and Friedrich too, maybe more than all of them), and I think in that sense you almost can’t mess up with a source document like Alcott’s.
On the surface, this film is such Hollywood finger food that it could immediately be written off as such if you really try. It is an actor vehicle whose central star overacts to the point of inducing nausea (Saiorse’s performance is overwrought and distracting but she’s so hot that people pretend they don’t see it. I’ll die on this hill). The colors are loud, it is EXTREMELY over-edited and painfully obvious, both emotionally and visually, around every corner. It’s a Hollywood adaptation of an adaptation of an adaptation, and it certainly reeks of a period drama product whose producers saw Lady Bird and wanted to crank this out for the white feminist grab bag. Again, there’s nothing about this on paper that should make this resonate with me, beyond it just being sweet and saccharine and painfully clear. So then why are there so many moments, both large and minuscule, that make me cry like a teeny little baby?
I think that peering beneath the surface of this film helps exposes the foundational qualities that make it wonderful and truly essential. More importantly, I think giving it the benefit of the doubt as a truly earnest and delicate work that is something more than the next thing from the Lady Bird woman.
I’ve felt the feeling inside, but I realized something during the ballroom scene that helped me organize that thought into something tangible, and it was noticing the through line between this and Malick’s Days of Heaven. This film has a foul Hollywood stench, and Days of Heaven certainly does not, but in its best moments they both have the same aromatic honesty. This film is far more sterile because it was built in an obvious fashion, but Gerwig’s talent as a screenwriter peers through and in its highest highs there is a very earnest, earthy, and lovely sensibility that elevates this film to something really great.
A lot of this also has to do with the construction of the film, which is so imaginative and technical yet so delightfully organic. Giving the audience the benefit of the doubt in regard to the source material and instead opting to focus all energy on the story’s thematic central pillar, MEMORY, allows Gerwig to build this really fascinating and engaging mosaic that maximizes literally every ache in the audience’s poor bodies.
It’s probably too saturated if you’re not into that. Saoirse acts too much. It’s far too emotionally loud, and it ends up being a little overbearing if you let it. The editing is so choppy and stark and I cannot see past it.
But the way that the camera slows when Jo and Friedrich are dancing. That wide shot where Beth is playing the piano by herself. The smash cut to the beach scene. Chris Cooper’s acting! The fucking SCORE!!! The last intercut flashback of them as kids! The letter reading from dad! The script! It’s all so RIGHT in your FACE and completely up front with you.
It’s a foundational film for me. It has inspired my interest in film and is one of blocks that I’ve ended up building myself on this last year. It was my best friend for a period of time. I’ll always love it.
(thank u for watching w me Claire. merry Christmas)