WINONA RYDER LITTLE WOMEN FREE
The family may be hard-pressed during the war - poor Meg has to borrow a friend’s dress to attend a coming-out ball, and cadge a pair of fancy shoes from a free box - but the love that the sisters draw from their mother is a rare luxury. In addition to passionate, self-doubting Jo, there’s Meg (Trini Alvarado), the oldest and strongest Beth (Claire Danes), the sickly one who never dreams of leaving home and Amy (played by Kirsten Dunst as a 12-year-old, and Samantha Mathis as a 16-year-old), the youngest and most determined to marry rich. ‘Somehow in that dark time, our family seemed to create its own light.’ ‘A temporary poverty had settled on our family,’ Jo/Ryder says in her narration, setting the emotional tone for the film. March is away at war and his wife and daughters are left at home. (but was filmed in British Columbia), during and after the Civil War. Largely autobiographical, ‘Little Women’ takes place in Concord, Mass. Meticulously crafted, and warmly acted by a cast that includes Winona Ryder as Jo and Susan Sarandon as her mother, the devoted Marmee, ‘Little Women’ is one of the rare Hollywood studio films that invites your attention, slowly and elegantly, rather than propelling your interest with effects and easy manipulation. None of that deterred Gillian Armstrong, the gifted Australian director of ‘My Brilliant Career,’ ‘Mrs. The second, made at MGM in 1949, starred June Allyson as Jo and Elizabeth Taylor as the youngest of the four March sisters, Amy. The original, made in 1933, starred Katharine Hepburn as Jo, the impetuous tomboy who was Alcott’s alter ego.
WINONA RYDER LITTLE WOMEN TV
Moreover, there are two previous film versions to compare it with, both available on video and in frequent TV broadcasts. Constantly in print since its publication in 1868, the novel is so revered by its fans, mostly women, that they tend to feel proprietary toward it, and regard its title characters as extended family.
Making a film from Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’ is asking for trouble. Starring Winona Ryder, Susan Sarandon, Trini Alvarado, Kirsten Dunst, Samantha Mathis, Claire Danes, Christian Bales, Gabriel Byrne and Eric Stoltz.
San Francisco Chronicle, December 21 1994