Little Women

I cried until my eyes really hurt while watching Little Women, not once but many times. Gillian Armstrong is adept at turning on the waterworks, too adept perhaps; Little Women cannot hide the fact that it is very sentimental. The beautiful images from a bygone age and the close bond between the protagonists, the March sisters, almost make one long for the good old days. Gillian Armstrong stresses, however, that there is no reason to long for them, at least not if you are a woman.

The second-eldest daughter, Jo, suffers most of all from being subjected to the feminine ideal of the time. Jo is something of a tomboy, a wild and unruly soul who cannot content herself with her lot as a woman. She goes to the big city to make her name as a writer, and at long last she succeeds with the novel "Little Women"!

Her sisters, too, apart from the eldest, the gentle Meg, express themselves artistically. Beth plays the piano, while Amy paints, but Jo is the only one able to make her art her livelihood. Little Women follows the March family from the war years, while the father is away at the front and the rest of the family keep poverty at bay, until all the girls have found their future husbands.

Christian Bale plays the family friend Laurie, who becomes Jo's best friend and more than that. He is also in love with her, but she loves him only as a friend. Years later Laurie has got together with Jo's younger sister Amy, who was jealous of Jo as a child. Jo herself has found love in the German professor Friedrich Bhaer, who ought to have been played by someone a little younger than Gabriel Byrne.