The Art Of Nostalgia – Greta Gerwig’s ‘Little Women’ At 5

Based on her real-life experiences. In 1868 Louisa May Alcott published her novel Little Women, a coming-of-age story following the exploits of the March sisters amidst the backdrop of the American Civil War. The book has been a cornerstone of American literature, and has found itself consistently charting in ranking lists as a seminal novel both culturally and in the context of books children should read. It is this popularity that has led to a plethora of screen adaptations of Little Women.

The most recent adaptation was brought to the screen by auteur Greta Gerwig. She both adapted the novel into a screenplay and directed the film which was released in 2019. This version of the beloved literature opened to critical (95% on Rotten Tomatoes), and wide (4.2 rating on Letterboxd) acclaim, including earning an Oscar for costume design (let’s be honest it should have won Screenplay, Director, and Actress too). On the eve of its fifth anniversary, it is only right to look back on why this adaptation is so universally loved. Through its narrative and visual style, 2019 Little Women proves itself a cut above the rest. A fresh, deeply emotional, retelling of a 150 year old book.

*Spoilers ahead for Little Women*

Little Women tells the story of the March sisters, Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth, and their experiences during the American Civil War. When the youngest sister Beth contracts Scarlet fever, the family’s life is thrown on a trajectory that will change them forever. 

It is important to note that the original novel by Louisa May Alcott was told in a linear fashion, split into two parts. The first part documents the March sisters’ childhood, and the second moves three years into the future and depicts the sisters as they separate and ultimately come back together after Beth’s untimely passing. In her version, Gerwig plays with these two distinctions. The narrative, unlike the novel, becomes non-linear, as both the past and present enmesh and unfold side by side.  

Gerwig cleverly links together moments from either side of this past and present line contextually, and thematically. This happens throughout but a prime example is the beach scene in the past, where the March sisters jovially spend time together which transitions to Jo (Saoirse Ronan) and Beth (Eliza Scanlen) alone on that same beach in the present. These moments that interject the present storyline are evocations of the past through Jo’s eyes. The past being presented in these memory-like states is important to the narrative stylings of Gerwig’s adaptation, as she tempts us to experience the story more emotively. 

Nostalgia is defined as a ‘sentimental longing or wistful affection for periods of the past’. It is linked, but different, to memory in the fact that recalling a memory doesn’t always evoke a strong emotion or feeling. Nostalgic memories on the other hand are filled with pure emotion and feeling, often relating to friends and family. Nostalgia can become especially pertinent when it comes to experiencing hardship in any kind of context. 

Nostalgia is a heavily relatable, universal experience so in film when we are presented with a character to empathise with, who is looking through their own nostalgic lens, it offers us a pathway to think in the same way. In Little Women Jo, and her family, go through unimaginable hardship. It is a godsend that the book offers a clear through point for this type of retelling to work. It is through Jo’s sense of nostalgia for the experiences in the first half of the book, whilst also traversing the events of the second half, that Gerwig is able to evoke this strong emotional response from the audience. 

The beauty of Greta Gerwig’s Little Women isn’t just present through its non-linear storytelling, but how this is presented visually. To keep it simple we will refer to two distinctive worlds that exist within the film, and for ease they’ll be referred to as the past and the present. In the screenplay Gerwig distinguished these parallel timelines by using a red font for the past scenes, but the main indicators of each on screen are best viewed through the lighting and colour grading.

When Little Women begins Jo is already in New York City, working as a governess. The opening wide-shot is beautifully constructed as it centres Jo who is standing in front of a door with a frosted glass window. An almost snow-white shade of lighting shines through, and this tone is indicative of the visual style of the present moving forward. It’s drab, and dull, as if all the brightness of any colour has been sapped out of the screen. Of course as we come to learn, in conjunction with the visual style of the past, this lapse of life mirrors the struggles of our central characters.

In stark juxtaposition to this, the past’s visual style is entirely the opposite. When the film first thrusts us from a dance in the present to a dance in the past. We are placed in a room with the sisters, and Jo and Meg (Emma Watson) are getting ready for the festivities. The cool hues are immediately swapped out with yellow, bolder, tones. If the “7 years earlier” doesn’t already make it clear a jump to the past has taken place then these warm tones do. There is something lovely and safe about the aura this colour grading gives off opposed to the harsh present. It is like a fire is raging off camera (and it often is in the scenes set in the past!) keeping these important and fond moments alive in Jo’s memory. 

Little Women then teeters along that line for the rest of its runtime, and without prompting. So you could also argue that it exists as a functional distinction as well as an emotive one. It is beautifully utilised throughout, but importantly it trains the audience to differentiate between the two. 

It is in one of Little Women’s later sequences, one of the most emotionally devastating moments in recent cinema history, that this distinction is truly felt. As Beth’s illness progresses it becomes more prevalent that the family might lose her. In the past Beth experiences a relapse and is incredibly unwell, as the family all look after and pray for her there is a cut to Jo jolting awake, and Beth is absent from her bed. She runs down the stairs and we see shots of her feet and her hand grabbing the rail. As she moves into the kitchen Marmee (Laura Dern) is sat at the table and as she turns around Beth is revealed behind her, who has recovered from the relapse.

There is a sigh of relief when Beth’s presence is confirmed at the table, and this moment leads to the family’s celebration of Christmas, where they are reunited with their father (Bob Odenkirk saying “My little women” will be forever iconic!). This is the peak of Jo’s nostalgia, her most cherished memory, filled with family, fun, and laughter.

The Christmas scene transitions back to a close-up of Jo, asleep once again at Beth’s bedside, who she notices is absent once more. The warm tones replaced with the coldness of the present, as Jo retraces the steps she made in the past. It’s almost a shot for shot mirroring of the previous scene as she comes to the kitchen, and as Marmee turns to face Jo she begins to sob, as this time she reveals an empty seat. It’s a testament to the talent of Greta Gerwig and the methods she utilises to tell the story of Little Women that this scene is an emotional gut-punch of monumental proportions. A set of memories that Jo held so fondly as a beacon of hope, jarringly replaced with the reality that she’s gone through the most horrible thing one can experience in life: the loss of a loved one. And because the audience has been placed in Jo’s shoes throughout, pinging back and forth between timelines, we have experienced the impact of that loss too.

All that said, Greta Gerwig wouldn’t be considered one of the greatest working filmmakers right now if she didn’t have one little surprise left up her sleeve. In the final scene of Little Women, where Jo opens her school in the house Aunt March (Meryl Streep) left for her, celebrates Marmee’s birthday alongside the publishing of her book, the two visual styles are smashed together. The warmth of the past seeps through into the present in a way it hadn’t done up until this point. Above it feeling like closure for Jo, and her family, it also represents something else. Jo’s nostalgia is used throughout to present the audience with her memories, of which she looks upon fondly.

The visual markers of the past in the final scene show that the warmth of nostalgia doesn’t just exist in our desire to relive the past, but it also exists right here, right now, within the people we love the most. We might lose people who dim that warmth dramatically, but that doesn’t mean the warmth is erased fully from existence. It’s this experimentation with memory and nostalgia through Alcott’s beloved text that helps it soar above every adaptation that came before it. Not only does Gerwig show us narratively, she shows us visually too making it both emotional and a treat to watch at the same time. So in that case, I hereby propose that Little Women by Greta Gerwig be submitted into a new canon of films entitled ‘The Art of Nostalgia’. Overall though, Little Women remains as resonant and relevant as ever all because of Gerwig’s adaptation, which is the filmic embodiment of a warm hug.