Little Women – A story of being an artist and becoming fiercely independent

In Gerwig’s poignant and heartfelt adaptation, the beloved story of the March sisters unfolds. Four young women, each determined to live life on her own terms, make the story both timeless and punctual.

Little Women is a book that unsparingly depicts how the world is hard on ambitious girls. It also offers a comfort: ambition is its own reward. A vibrant inner life can break the bonds of the world.  We first encounter it as children, when the world’s possibilities are wide open and nothing can hold us back. We return to it as young adults, when adulthood and society begin shaping who we are. We return again, as older readers, with bittersweet nostalgia of being young and bold. We also find joy in seeing a new generation experience that daring for themselves.  The insistent power of the book lies in its unique call. It encourages an individual to grapple with life’s many clashing lures—family, art, money, love, and freedom. It holds the hope of being 100% who you are and creating your own unique story. 

This deeply personal idea of Little Women is fiercely alive. It is the one writer-director Greta Gerwig wanted to transport to the screen. 

Gerwig approached the material with a determination. She wanted to capture the sweeping, epic nature of the story. This captures the enormity of what Alcott created. She also sought an honest, disarming emotional intimacy that brings the characters to life.   

Every reader brings their own personal interpretation and meaning to the story. Gerwig adds her own unique touch to it. 

The novel was originally published in two halves. The first half focuses on the March sisters in auspicious girlhood. The second half covers the stark realities of adulthood. Gerwig deconstructs the novel and alternates between the two halves. Jo’s story of determination and spirit serves as the natural through-line. It reconstructs the connection between its parts. The film uses a fluid approach to time. It immerses the audience in the memories, moments, accidents of fate and acts of will that shape the March sisters. These elements shape Jo into an ink-stained, defiantly independent writer. They influence Meg to become a nurturing, principled, would-be actor. They mold Beth into a fragile, open-hearted musician. They encourage Amy to grow into a clever, aspirational painter. Each sister develops into her full, complicated adult self. Each sister is so different but united in an unswerving sisterhood. 

Louisa May Alcott

The picture that emerges is of four women looking back with affection at how they became who they are.  It is also about a world that values the everyday lives of women. Their discoveries, sacrifices, and anger are significant. Their financial, artistic, and domestic concerns deeply matter. 

What does it mean to take the reins of your life? So much that happens is out of your control. This ranges from a crack in the ice to a mistimed letter.  And how does that look to four sisters with four divergent dreams? 

These are the questions Gerwig brings to the fore in a visually ravishing film. The film’s look draws inspiration from the bold artists of Alcott’s time. They changed how people viewed the world. The questions feel modern. Alcott was the one who latched onto these oppositions. They still stop us in our tracks: money vs. art, love vs. personal satisfaction, ideals vs. real life, caring for family vs. finding your own voice.

Before Gerwig demonstrated her powerful voice with Lady Bird, she told producer Amy Pascal she was the right person. She wanted to adapt Little Women.  “I flung myself at it with everything I had,” says Gerwig.  “I had a very specific idea of what it was about.  It’s about women as artists. It’s also about women and money.  That is all there in the text, but it’s an aspect of the story that hasn’t been delved into before.  For me, it felt very close to the surface. Even now, this movie feels more autobiographical than anything I’ve made.” 

Gerwig read Little Women so many times as a child, she doesn’t remember the first time.  She felt such an intense identification with Jo March. Like a long list of fellow writers and artists, Jo felt less like a made-up person. Jo was a tomboy, misfit, and would-be novelist struggling against the status quo to become the woman she imagines. Jo felt more like a charismatic mentor.  She was the girl who knew what she wanted.  To be freer.  To create.  To transcend all that was not allowed and yet to give of herself fully to her loved ones.  That’s part of why Gerwig wanted to immerse audiences in Jo’s world. She aimed for a visceral experience that captured its emotional highs and lows and personal dynamics. 

Little Women has been part of who I am for as long as I can remember,” Gerwig notes.  “I always knew who Jo March was. She was my girl, the person I wanted to be. She was also the person who I hoped I was.” 

Director/Writer Greta Gerwig and DP Yorick LeSaux on the set of LITTLE WOMEN.

Gerwig stays true to Alcott’s original voice. She reconstructs the novel in an inherently cinematic way. She unmoors the story from linear time. The March’s most unforgettable events become the stuff of memories and creative inspiration.  This allows audiences to see the March sisters in a new light. They see them as adults reflecting on their past and as the living source for Jo’s writing. 

“Every time I read the book, it became something different,” observes Gerwig.  “I first knew it in the coziness of childhood. Then, as I got older, new parts of it jumped out at me.  As I began writing the screenplay, I clearly saw how poignant and fascinating the sisters’ lives are as adults. They are trying to figure out how to honor the fearless youth they had as grown-ups.”

Gerwig engaged in extensive research. She read Alcott’s letters and papers. She drew on aspects of Alcott’s real life to give her adaptation a formidable, modern voice.  For example, the real Alcott wrote, “I had lots of troubles, so I write jolly tales.” In the film, Marmee says, “I’m angry nearly every day of my life.”

In drawing early inspiration from Little Women, Gerwig has a lot of company.  The late sci-fi master Ursula K. Le Guin called Alcott “close as a sister.”

Novelist Erica Jong said Little Women sparked a belief that “women could become writers, intellects—and still have rich personal lives.” The heroines of Elena Ferrante’s masterwork My Brilliant Friend bond over a tattered copy of Alcott’s book. They vow to write their own. 

Poet Gail Mazur thanked Alcott for helping writers. She appreciated the guidance on how “to live with, knowing we’re not alone. Alcott addressed the conflict between the writer’s need for solitude and self-absorption. She also addressed the yearning for the warmth of love.” 

Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling said of Jo March:  “It is hard to overstate what she meant to a small, plain girl called Jo. This girl had a hot temper and a burning ambition to be a writer.”

For women, carving out any individualistic path, particularly an artistic life, has been perilous in any era.  But that’s also why Jo hit home so hard with Gerwig.  “There’s a rebel spirit in Jo. She holds a hope for a life beyond what your gender dictates. That is completely exciting to us still,” says Gerwig.  “She’s this girl with a boy’s name. She wants to write. She’s ambitious and angry. She’s so many different things that we identify with.  It’s like she allowed us to be free.”   

Gerwig also wanted to pay homage to Alcott’s unsung story of financial success. She wanted to highlight how Alcott’s time were rife with war and inequality. These times were also lit up with new ideas and free-thinkers. There was an energy of change. In this atmosphere, Alcott crashed through social barriers. She carved her own path to thriving self-sufficiency. Alcott took control of her copyrights like the J.K. Rowling of her day. She built then largely unheard-of name recognition outside of marriage or inheritance. 

“These are things that are still coming up right now,” observes Gerwig. “You see this in Taylor Swift deciding to re-record her back catalogue. She is doing so to own it.” 

To Gerwig, Alcott clearly chose the scarcity of money. She also chose freedom as the unavoidable organizing fact of the March sister’s lives.  At the same time, she wanted to celebrate the unapologetic domesticity of this story. It is about four sisters and a devoted mother transforming a household into an indelible world unto itself.  An interesting analysis I read explains that Little Women is unique among books about childhood. It is not about escape. There is bravery, but it’s a hero’s journey contained inside the home,” Gerwig says. 

All of this attracted an extraordinary group of women. They shepherded the film to the screen. This includes Gerwig, producers Amy Pascal, Denise Di Novi, and Robin Swicord. The ensemble is led by Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Eliza Scanlen, Florence Pugh, Laura Dern, and Meryl Streep. 

Laura Dern. Meryl Streep and Florence Pugh

For the film’s multi-generational cast, the draw to this Little Women went beyond their private experiences with the book.  What made it special was how of-this-moment Gerwig’s loving approach felt.

 “I think the story feels more relevant than ever right now,” says Ronan, who plays Jo. “It explores young women finding the confidence to take their own paths.  It also is a story that changes depending on where you  are in life.  You could be an Amy for a few years. Then suddenly you’re a Jo. Next, you might be a Meg or a Marmee. Maybe you find yourself back to being a Beth.  You can find yourself in each one.” 

“It’s a story about identity and there’s nothing more modern than that,” adds Dern, who plays Marmee.  “We still struggle today with asking, ‘Who am I?’ Moreover, how can I stand true to that in my life despite everyone else’s opinion?’ —yet that’s what Louisa May Alcott wrote about 150 years ago.  Part of Alcott’s beauty is her establishment of strength as independence, as art, and as ambition. She also portrayed it as marriage and parenting. Greta invites the audience to engage with all of that.” 

Eliza Scanlen, who plays Beth, offers another take on the story’s continued resonance.   “It affirms that the emotions you experience in childhood are just as complicated. They are just as important as the ones you experience later on in life. Recognizing childhood emotions as significant has not often been done.” 

Gerwig approached the film as both a faithful retelling. She drew as much from the text as possible. It is also a postmodern retelling.  She shakes up the story. She tells it in two separate timelines. The characters’ lives as adults run alongside the story of their childhoods.  “I structured the film to begin the narrative when they are adults. Then, I entered into the story of childhood as we all do. It is like a memory. It is a yearning. It serves as a key to understanding who you are and where you are going,” says Gerwig. “We are always walking beside our younger selves. I wanted there to be a tension – is that what happened, or is that how you remember it? Is that what happened, or is that how you wrote it?”

This Little Women is unabashedly a story. Boys and men are certainly part of the picture. They are at times alluring and at times enervating to the sisters. However, they are never at the center of the world.  “What is so wonderful about Alcott’s work is that these girls are there to serve their own stories. They also serve each other’s stories. That idea comes through so strongly in Greta’s script,” say producer Amy Pascal. 

“It’s the perfect time for this movie. Women are talking more than ever about choices, about how to be, and about money. They are discussing what power is and how we get along with men,” Pascal continues.  “Greta bring all this into the film by staying true to Alcott.  She said, ‘I want to make a movie unlike any other.  I want to make a movie from the book. If you go back to the book, it’s more controversial. It’s funnier and darker than you think. I want to make a movie that feels that real.’” 

Director/Writer Greta Gerwig and DP Yorick LeSaux on the set of LITTLE WOMEN.

Adapting Alcott

 One of the fundamental truths of Little Women is that Louisa May Alcott almost didn’t write the book at all.  She never saw herself as a writer of “girl’s stories.” At that time, they were almost entirely dismissed as unimportant. They were also not considered economically viable.  Her publisher posed the idea to her. She could not resist attempting to rival the adventure tales for boys. These tales were often significant bestsellers and influential to their young searching readers. 

Alcott noted that she never really knew any girls except her three sisters and mother.  As it turned out, her own family held out incredible raw material.  Alcott re-envisioned her family life as fiction. She expressed things about growing up as a girl with limited options. Her ceaseless aspiration was something no one had said so clearly or with such relatability before. 

Like the March family she would create, the Alcotts were a close-knit group.  Their parents were the educator Bronson Alcott and the activist and social worker Abigail May. They were idealists and Transcendentalists. This 19th Century movement became the forerunner of the counterculture. It called for self-reliance and civil disobedience. It encouraged deep engagement with the arts and respect for the natural world. Being true to oneself was seen as the basis of a happy life.  The elder Alcotts believed in equality and learning. They encouraged Louisa and her siblings to pursue the things that mattered to them. 

For Louisa, it was always writing.   Louisa grew up in an intellectually stimulating environment, despite monetary constraints. Her schoolteacher was Henry David Thoreau. Her neighbor was Ralph Waldo Emerson. She began writing at a young age.  Yet, economics forced Alcott to work as a teacher, seamstress, and governess. She worked even while writing her first book, Flower Fables. This book was published when she was just 17.  She wrote for The Atlantic Monthly. She published a memoir of her time as a Civil War nurse, Hospital Sketches. She also penned action-packed spy stories under the pseudonym A.M. Bernard. She sold these stories for $50 a piece, money it take a year to earn doing seamstress work. 

Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet

There was a presumption when Little Women was published that men alone wrote enduring works of literature.  With rare exceptions, books by women, and books about women, were light and passing entertainment, or so the theory went.  From the day it hit the shelves, Little Women became an instant smash hit. It sold out its first run in days.  It soon became clear that women and girls had been thirsting for authentic, honest, emotional stories about their everyday lives.  The first 23 chapters were so popular. Alcott’s publisher implored her to write more. This led to the 47-chapter book that became the beloved classic.  Since its release, Little Women has never been out of print and has been translated into at least 55 languages.  It’s been adapted for stage, television and movies, even as an opera and an anime. 

Gerwig did not focus on all that came before. She aimed to get back to the breathing soul of the book as she saw it.  Re-reading the novel as an adult, she noticed Alcott’s very modern way of capturing language. She was struck by how deftly Alcott captured the free-form, informal language of family. 

“It was so clear that the language was fresh and exciting and needed almost nothing from me. I tried to make the script have as much word-for-word from the book as possible.”

She heard it unspooling in her head, which led in turn to her directorial approach.  “I wanted the actors to say it all at the speed of life. I wanted them to run through the dialogue quickly and irreverently because that’s how I heard it,” Gerwig explains.   

Gerwig continues:  “So that’s why I had the idea to start with them as adults. I wanted to allow their childhoods to live alongside them not as flashbacks but as two separate timelines. It captures the reality that when we walk down the street, we’re always walking with the younger versions of ourselves.  We’re always integrating the person we thought we were going to be with the person we are now.  I was looking at constructing a narrative that incorporates what a whole life is.” 

Part of that narrative of a life is certainly romance, always a factor in Little Women’s appeal.  But here, Gerwig explores the idea that each March sister aims not just for love. She pursues her own version of love among equals.  Readers have debated Jo’s choice of husband for a long time. Some wonder if it was right for her to have chosen a husband at all.  The fact that Alcott, otherwise so much like Jo, took the opposite path of her character is complicated. She remained unmarried even after attaining fame.  Gerwig took an unusual approach to the question in the climactic moments of Little Women

“If Jo was the hero of my girlhood, Louisa May Alcott is the hero of my womanhood. It mattered to me that she did not want Jo to get married. She did it because her publisher told her Jo had to marry. There’s a letter she wrote where she said, ‘I have made Jo a funny match out of spite.’ So, I wanted to give her an ending she would like. It might be the ending she wanted. It celebrates the choice she wanted to make. I wanted to give us that rom-com moment at the end that Louisa gave us. But as it’s happening, I also wanted to ask, ‘Why do we want that? Why do we need Jo to have that moment?’”

Saoirse Ronan, Laura Dern, and Eliza Scanlen

Gerwig’s naturalistic, overlapping dialogue especially excited the cast.  “Greta allows the girls to talk over one another. They bounce off each other. It truly feels like four or five people in a room together,” says Saoirse Ronan.  “We had to work extra hard to make the dialogue really, really tight in these scenes.  But I haven’t worked with another director who works like Greta does.  She always knows when something is right by how it sounds.  The rhythm and pace of the scenes makes the feeling so unique in her films.  It feels like Greta is inviting you into the secret inner world of the March family.” 

Gerwig explains: “I didn’t want the overlapping dialogue to feel like a cacophony. I wanted it to be very specifically overlapped. It was almost like conducting an orchestra. We rehearsed for a couple of weeks, and, which was pretty essential because the script was so precise.   I wanted it to feel like they were tumbling over each other with excitement. I also wanted it to sound like how sisters talk. I didn’t want it to sound like everyone waits their turn. That’s not how I experience a bunch of sisters when they’re together.  Having such great actors, I could trust them because they make the language even more alive and deeper.”  

Capturing that full breadth of sisterhood—its beauty and unity but also its driving tensions—was key to Gerwig. 

“I saw each of the sisters as artists. I wanted to take each of their artistic pursuits seriously because they do. There is a lot of love and a deep bond between them. However, they’re really competitive. They can get under each other’s skin. They can be mean and cutting. They can also be loving and kind. I aimed to capture all of that in the soup. To me, it is what makes what happens to them that much more powerful. They are real people whose relationships are messy and wild.”

The script also brought the book into fresh focus for Pascal. Another accomplished woman, she has had a lifelong relationship with Little Women. This relationship even ties back to her given name, Amy Beth.   “It’s a film about the way you remember childhood. It’s about the passage of time. It’s also about being an artist,” she says.  “But it’s also a movie about becoming fiercely independent.”