My head is still full of Little Women, and since there have been so many adaptations over the years, I felt it was time for a post that ranked the best portrayals of each character. By which I mean the four sisters, their suitors and other important characters (I won't bother with minor characters such as Hannah or Mr March).
And for the record, I wouldn't dare say that my choices are the objective best, but rather are just my personal favourites that you can agree or disagree with as you see fit.
Best Aunt March: Edna May Oliver (1933). I imagine being offered the role of fusty old maiden aunt isn’t exactly flattering, so you may as well have some fun with it. Pretty much all of the Aunt March actresses go the comedic route, but there’s a darker streak to Oliver’s take on the character. Her ultimatum to Meg concerning her marriage to Brookes feels genuinely threatening, and I HAVE to believe that Margaret Hamilton at least partly based The Wicked Witch of the West on Oliver’s performance. The similarity in their speech patterns and pitch is remarkable.
Runner-up: Mary Wickes (1994). It’s sad that I only knew Wickes from her three final projects: this, the Sister Act movies, and voicing one of the gargoyles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But she captures the amusing qualities of a terminal grouch, and more importantly, also the fact that Aunt March is a genuinely unhappy person. This no doubt had to do with Alcott’s own belief system (albeit one that was dictated by outside pressures) which forbad her from writing a wealthy, unmarried spinster who was perfectly happy with her lot in life, but still, Aunt March’s lasting legacy to her great-nieces is that money can’t buy you happiness.
Best John Brooke: Julian Morris (2017). Whether you want a good man or a bad boy, every woman can agree that absolutely NO ONE wants a John Brooke. *shudder* The challenge of this role is not to make audiences shake their heads in abject pity for Meg; managing anything beyond that is just a mild bonus. Morris gets first place simply because they make him the same age as Meg, and though I don’t think it’s made explicitly clear how old he is in the novel, there’s still a considerable age gap. Removing that at least makes him less of a creepster.
It’s weird – I think any adaptation has to be accurate when it comes to the age difference between Jo and Bhaer, but aging Brooke down made all the difference – now they’re two awkward kids instead of an older man guilt-tripping a visibly younger girl.
Runner-up: Eric Stoltz (1994). I guess? Look, words can't express how little I care about this guy, but there’s at least a nice scene in this film when he’s out in the garden with Hannah, helping her pull up lettuces. So he respects the domestics, at least.
Best Marmee: Susan Sarandon (1994). There are few roles for an actress more boring to play than a paragon of virtue, but such is the role of Marmee: quintessential angel of the house. Her most interesting book moment is when she confesses to Jo that she also has a terrible temper – but one that is promptly stifled when she says hard work and prayer keep it at bay. Basically it’s all about what an actress can bring to a profoundly uninteresting role. Sarandon has always had a queenly bearing, and it’s fascinating to see it on the 19th century wife of a poor transcendentalist. Throw in her proto-feminist commentary (pointing out the double-standards between her girls and Laurie; encouraging their physical exertion) and Marmee is suddenly… *gasp*...cool.
Runner-up: Emily Watson (2017). At the risk of sounding cruel, Watson does best at capturing Marmee’s inevitable dowdiness: this is a woman that’s raising four girls in abject poverty in the midst of the Civil War before the age of forty and she looks it. But more than any other Marmee she also captures her humanity: whereas Sarandon put on a stoic face in the wake of Beth’s death, Watson’s is allowed to cry – and not just at that point: perhaps this version’s best original scene is when Marmee sees her daughters getting ready the morning of Meg’s wedding, and has to step out into the hall to compose herself.
Best Bhaer: Gabriel Byrne (1994). Here’s how Alcott describes Bhaer in the book: “rather stout, with brown hair tumbled all over his head, a busy beard, droll nose…and he hadn’t a handsome feature in his face.” But writers of these adaptations just…can’t…commit to that. Perhaps it’s to their credit they can’t bear to have such a lovable heroine paired off with a sexless, bearded, twice-her-age fuddy-duddy professor, so either they refrain from making the two of them “official” (they don’t kiss in the earlier films) or they ignore the text to make him handsome and/or young.
They got the right balance with Byrne, who was forty-four at the time of filming, but still pretty damn handsome (who are we kidding, he can still get it). More importantly, they capture his kindness and patience, which is what Jo finds attractive from the start.
Runner-up: I was going to give this spot to Mark Stanley (2017) on the basis of him being the only Bhaer to have a beard, but Paul Lukas (1933) has spectacles and a kindly temperament, and probably best manages to capture the spirit of the character as depicted in the book, trying to console Jo even as she’s weeping over Laurie.
Best Laurie: Jonah Hauer-King (2017). Yeah, this surprised me too. Jo’s rejection of Laurie is a rite-of-passage for so many readers. As a teenager, you feel totally cheated. As a twenty-something, you realize Jo made the right choice – that as good a playmate as Laurie was, he really wasn’t husband material; at least, not for her. Then you get even older, and you realize Jo was a lesbian and wonder why on earth you spent so much time thinking about Laurie at all.
I think Hauer-King manages the crux of Laurie: essentially a good-hearted and friendly young man, but so blind to his own privilege that it leads to his assumption he’ll always get what he wants. I think this take on Laurie understands this; that Jo’s rejection is what destroys that childish fecklessness – and though we don’t see a lot of post-Jo Laurie, Hauer-King definitely manages to make him stand up straighter, speak more discerningly, and generally act more grownup.
Runner-up: Christian Bale (1994). Here’s the thing I realized while watching all these adaptations in succession: every single Laurie – whether by accident or design – is played with no small degree of effeminacy… except Bale’s.
I’ve often wondered if Laurie’s feminine energy was meant to be a deliberate contrast to Jo’s tomboyish-ness (it was Greta Gerwig who pointed out Laurie has the girl’s name, and Jo has the boy’s), but it’s missing completely from this adaptation. Bale is an intrinsically masculine guy, and though we didn’t know it back in 1994, as Laurie he was playing drastically against type in comparison to his later, uber-masculine roles (Batman, American Psycho, John Connor, that dumb dragon movie).
Perhaps this is part of the reason why Jo’s rejection of him feels so wrong in this adaption – not because of how he’s written or performed, but because it’s so bizarre to see an Alpha Male getting rejected. Like, permanently rejected. Because it simply doesn’t happen, which means our expectations as to where Jo and Laurie end up are so profoundly undermined that it just doesn’t feel right – here more than in any other take on the material. And while the other Lauries end up as listless, drunken, pathetic losers in Europe, Bale’s heartbreak is broody and introspective. Dammit, he’s even hotter that way! If this was your first experience with Little Women, you can understand why so many people thought Alcott got it all wrong.
Best Beth: Margaret O'Brien (1949). Along with Marmee, this is a pretty thankless role. You’re the embodiment of goodness and then you die. Your purpose is literally just to make everyone cry, and I was fascinated to find that the later the adaptation, the less interested it is in Beth’s character. So it’s by going early that we find the most focus on Beth; they can’t resist the whole Too Good for This Sinful Earth malarkey. And O’Brien is perhaps the one thing in the 1949 version that is genuinely superior to the others: playing Beth with a solemn, otherworldly air long before she falls ill.
Runner-up: Jean Parker (1933). Sentimental and oddly doll-like – but dammit, I shed a tear when she got to her feet for the first time after her illness to walk into her father’s arms.
Best Meg: Trina Alvarado (1994). When I think of Meg I think of a quintessential little lady: quiet, kind, good-mannered, and a natural beauty. It would drive me nuts to consistently uphold those virtues in my own life, but Alvarado captures a gentleness of spirit while still conveying a distinctly feminine strength. You can feel in her a longing for the finer things in life, but also a determination to maintain her integrity and marry for love without ignoring the hardships that will follow.
Runner-up: Willa Fitzgerald (2017). Pretty much for the exact same reasons Alvarado was so good, though in Fitzgerald’s case she’s like a little china doll, whereas Alvarado was a classic beauty. And normally I don’t stress physical appearance, but it is a defining Meg trait.
Best Amy: Florence Pugh (2019). Well, there's no competition here. It's at least a mild struggle to decide on the best Jo or Laurie, but no one ever truly did Amy justice until Florence Pugh – not only in selling Amy's bratty qualities, which are eventually shed in favour of clear-eyed pragmatism, but also the love match between her and Laurie. It's frankly a miracle they pulled it off, and yet it plays out beautifully. As someone mentioned on Tumblr, having Pugh play both young and older Amy avoids the icky She’s All Grown Up trope; as when this Amy and Laurie reconnect it’s as older versions of who they’ve always been, drawing upon the history they already share, in which Jo was central, but (as they discover) not all-encompassing.
Runner-up: Kirsten Dunst (1994) who wins simply because she was the only twelve-year old Amy to actually be played by a child and not a woman in her twenties. As such, her brattiness – whether it be her spitefulness or yearning for limes or childish vanity (the peg on the nose!) is more easily understood when you’re watching an actual twelve year old. Her pitiful: “I’m sorry Jo,” in the wake of burning Jo’s book is peak Amy.
Best Jo: Maya Hawke (2017). This is the toughest one, because Jo is so may things to so many people, and I can only go with my own instincts. They tell me Maya Hawke is the one, as more than any other Jo I think she captures the masculine energy as it was described in the book, in deliberate contrast to her uber-feminine older sister. Her deep voice and her forceful mannerisms, with intelligent eyes and big smile, a loud laugh and unique beauty – she’s tomboyish without going over-the-top, and nails the simmering anger that Jo has for the world (again, without going overboard).
Runner-up: Katharine Hepburn (1933). Hawke’s Jo certainly had some queer subtext about her (coincidentally helped by the fact she then played Robin in Stranger Things) but Hepburn goes full throttle. It’s amazing. Her voice is loud, her mannerisms are wide, she takes up room, and every emotion is projected across every room. She’s in colour, even though the film is in black and white.
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But every actress brings something special to Jo: June Allyson her cheerfulness, Winona Ryder her intellect, Saoirse Ronan her ambition – it’s a testament to Louisa May Alcott that she’s such a beloved heroine, and it’ll only be a matter of time before we have another to add to the roster. But the most fascinating thing about all the film adaptations, even the earliest ones, is that it ends with Jo being presented (or at least told about) her published book. And this doesn’t occur in the novel itself – rather Bhaer comes across a poem she’s written and tells her she’s finally captured true emotion in her writing (then Jo tears it up – yeah, it’s kinda weird).
But even as far back as 1933, the adaptations knew that Jo’s true love was writing, and the perfect end to her story wasn’t marriage or the school, but the fulfilment of her literary work. So for now, the culmination of all these films ends on a perfect note: of Ronan’s Jo watching her book be bound before it’s presented to her much like a mother gets to hold a baby for the first time. Her life with Bhaer and the opening of the school might be a fantasy, but the book we’ve all been reading for the past one hundred and fifty years is real.
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