Movie Review: Little Women 2019 directed by Greta Gerwig

Greta Gerwig, director of this wonderful classic by Louisa May Alcott, seemed intimately familiar with this beautiful story. Faithful to Little Women for many years, I first read this story in my teens. Since then I’ve read it several times and enjoyed the story and characters each time. 

I’ll confess: Jo March, the impassioned writer with ink stained hands in the little garret, was always my favourite character. A tomboy who confronted life with energy and not a little frustration when life for a woman of that period just did not suit. Greta Gerwig, writing and directing this film, seemed to have plucked out all the most important parts of the story, weaving them with skill into the heart of Louisa May Alcott's novel. Jo (Saorise Ronan) writing and trying to have her ‘scribbles’ published in a man’s world. Meg March (Emma Watson) marrying her love Mr. Brooks on a summer’s day. Amy March (Florence Pugh) trying her hand at being a great artist when she went to Paris as companion to Aunt March (Meryl Streep). Amy, the gentle youngest sister, playing piano and just being good. Most of all it was the family bonds between sisters ~ not without rivalry ~  held together by Marmee (Laura Dern) while her husband (Bob Odenkirk) was away fighting in the Civil War.

Greta Gerwig has created a lively script for this classic story by Louisa May Alcott. In a non-linear fashion, this fresh look into the Marsh family home and life, was charming and fun. Not to mention, scenes when tears were called for! When the girls quarrelled, when Amy burned Jo’s work, when Jo saved Amy from drowning, poverty and wealth……I’ll not tell all. I am assuming there are some who don’t know this beautiful story, but can’t imagine why. The issues that women faced ~ marry for money if you at all can, but women must marry ~ was discussed between sisters with Aunt March (Meryl Streep) giving stern direction. The casting was excellent for all the characters. An additional challenge for the actors that played the four sisters, Jo, Meg, Amy and Beth, was defining their roles from adolescence through to adulthood. They were each successful. 

The movie Little Women for Christmas of 2019, is a must see movie. It is true to Louisa May Alcott’s story, opening with Jo March walking briskly into Mr. Dashwood’s office with a manuscript. From there, each of the girls gives us their memories that are the story Little Women.

“Girls have to go out into the world and 

make up their own minds about things.”

~ Marmee, Little Women

Directed by Greta Gerwig

Written By:  Greta Gerwig

Based on the novel by:  Louisa May Alcott

Cast:

Saoirse Ronan: Jo March

Emma Watson: Meg March

Florence Pugh: Amy March

Eliza Scanlon: Beth March

Laura Dern: ‘Marmee’ Mary March

Bob Odenkirk: Mr. March

Meryl Streep:  Aunt March

Timothée Chalamet: Laurie (Teddy)

Chris Cooper: Mr. Laurence (Laurie’s grandfather)

James Norton: John Brooke

Louis Garrel: Friedrich Bhaer

Tracy Letts:  Mr. Dashwood

Sunshine, Sand and Snowflakes - 2nd Edition

I quite enjoy going through my old posts. They have all come from my heart in whatever form they take. I think maybe the stories are my favourite. That being said some of my stories have really needed a lot of editing and just plain fixing! I am most grateful to all of my readers for actually reading them! This story, fortunately, required little of that fixing. Most stories can be fixed. Paintings can be painted over. Memories? Well, not so easily no matter how hard we may try. My belief is that memories are really the residue of the relationships in our lives and all the people that we have shared time with, whether moments, distance or decades. As I was reading this little story, I was reminded of that very thing. At Christmas time, coming together with each other, there is much reminiscing around dining room tables, in living rooms or on skating rinks welcoming our  family and friends from memory. Some may be in other parts of the world, others may have gone from this earth. There will be new faces and new generations along our way. My great-granddaughter, only five months old is the newest in my life and the lives of my family. More generations will ebb and flow each day in our lives. It may only take 'an old guitar' to prime memory's pump. This little story is my imagined ‘painting’.

Sunshine, Sand and Snowflakes - 2nd Edition

It was an old guitar propped up against a rock. Sun had dried the wood, thin strips of blue paint peeling away. Only one string remained strung. The others broken and curled. Sand had drifted up against the base of the once beautiful instrument. Petra could almost picture a cowboy sitting on the rock and strumming quietly as he watched over his herd. 

Petra had been out riding at the far end of her father’s ranch. At this far end, the cliffs allowed her to look over the desert. The only plants that survived were tough grasses and scattered mesquite. Cattle seldom came this far to graze but if one of the herd was lost this was an area that was searched. To a newcomer to this land, it would look as though the guitar had been here for a very long time, but the dry winds and hot sun of the desert quickly dried and weathered all that they touched. It was difficult to tell how long it had really been there. Or why.

Petra dismounted, letting the reins of her pinto, John, trail in the sand. Cautious of rattlesnakes, Petra decided to not go far from John. Taking her sketch book and pencils from John’s saddle bags, and her bottle of water, she settled against the only tree throwing its thin shade. While John grazed on the sparse grasses, Petra sketched a picture of the guitar, the rock and the shimmering expanse of red desert in the distance. On that day, the wind had been calm, desert sand lying still in the heat.

Thirty-five years later, Petra looked wistfully at the finished painting of the old guitar that hung over the mantle. So strange. She had come so far in her life. In this northern city far from the desert, where everything was convenient and beautiful, her life was still a good life. Interesting, busy but so very different. Cars instead of horses. Drifts of snowflakes sparkling in the brilliant sunshine. Each stage of her life had been full of hope. It was always the hope that moved her forward. Hope and the strength she gained from each experience. This Christmas, as the others, she was grateful for all those people she had met along the way. 

The doorbell rang, reining in her wandering thoughts. Her family had arrived for turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Laughing their hellos, they stamped the snow from their boots. They would make their own paintings of their lives to cherish. They would be cautious and they would be brave. Petra smiled and opened her arms to her grandchildren and welcomed them into her home.

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but 

I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”

~ Douglas Adams, 

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Growing Into - 2nd Edition

There are many things that get too small for us while we grow up and into our lives. Our lives can feel like some traditions don't fit anymore. Festive seasons and the traditions we grow up with change. There is so much nostalgia to consider, especially at these times. It can be so easy to slip into feeling lost and lonely making it difficult to recall and reshape the warm fuzzy things. This little story, first written on Boxing Day, 2015, has also been edited and reshaped. 

Growing Into ~ 2nd Edition

It was the day after. On this day after Christmas, Roberta felt such a lovely quiet. Some people went to the mall for the great Boxing Day sales. A repeat of the Christmas shopping madness and yet a screeching reverse. Roberta never liked that craziness. She had vowed many Christmas’s ago to not participate in either. It was the year ‘Bobbi’ had graduated from high school, got her first job and her first apartment. In the fall when people gearing up for Christmas she decided that her holiday season was going to be exactly that ~ a holiday season. The shopping trips that her mother had insisted on were going to stop. 

Bobbi loved decorating her apartment in reds and greens, gold and silver, bells and angels. She and her girlfriends had made parties out of decorating each other’s apartments. Oh, they did go shopping. But Bobbi, and her friend Emi, always was finished before the others. They would go to lunch, take their finds home and spent the rest of their afternoon wrapping their gifts. That first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning, in her quiet apartment, it had totally felt weird. She didn’t stay home long. She ripped open one of her presents, put all the rest of them in a glossy red and white shopping bag, and jumped in the shower. All showered and dressed in a brand new Christmas outfit she drove quickly across town to her parents home where she spent the day unwrapping and squealing over her gifts, as though she were still a teenager.

That first Boxing Day was when she felt the quiet. Her adult life was taking shape. She had slept in, as she planned. Made a special breakfast of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream for herself, as planned. While stirring the waffle batter, she hummed a Christmas tune. Catching her reflection in the shiny new tea kettle her mother gave her she saw a grown up. Her parents had named her Roberta. Tilting her head to one side, she said her name out loud. 'Roberta'. Than began humming again. Finished breakfast, still in her Christmas pyjamas, she took her cup of tea and curled up on her ratty old sofa from a second hand store. Roberta opened her new book from her grandma. Wrapped cosily in her old quilt from home, with James Taylor on the stereo and sunshine in the window, she dozed. Plans to go the the Boxing Day sales, dissolved in the  cozy warmth that her held her fast. Her phone played a bit of jazz. It was Emi and Rheina calling her for a movie, something they always did on Boxing Day. A special tradition, the three girls had vowed to keep even into adulthood.

As Boxing Day came to a close, Roberta’s ideas about how to ‘do’ Christmas and Boxing Day became her own. Since that first Boxing Day, the Christmas season was always exciting and fun. As much as possible, she went to church with her parents for services on Christmas Eve and felt at peace. Christmas Day was spent with her own growing family whether in her own home or with her parents. Sometimes it was a gathering of friends and 'Christmas orphans'. Boxing Day had become her own special day to revel in ~ without sales and frenzied, crowded malls. Reading a new Christmas book, walking in crisp winter air, a movie with old friends or new, or just on her own. She had learned and was still learning what it was to grow into her own life.

“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”

~ Louisa May Alcott,  Little Women

A Long Overdue Letter to Santa Claus - 2nd Edition

I've received so many gifts this past year, one more beautiful than any material wish ~ my great granddaughter, Rylie Rose'Marie. She's five months old now! Finding this letter, still unmailed from last year, I was quite humbled. (I did take the opportunity to add a bit to my Santa letter for Rylie Rose.) Found this letter this morning! No envelope. No stamp. Maybe I’ll mail it next year? Anyway ~ it still holds true. My belief in Santa Claus, my knowledge that Christmas comes at any time and my Christmas wishes for each of you….Merry Christmas everyone!!

Dear Santa, 

I’m not sure I should be writing you this letter. It’s been over 60 years since the last time I wrote, but I’ve been thinking a lot about you lately. Partly because it’s Christmas and your namesakes are all over the place. But partly because I miss Christmas morning and the brown stockings filled with nuts, candy and an orange in the toe. Did you really eat all the cookies and milk at everyone’s house? 

But that’s not what I wanted to ask about. I have everything I need and most things I want. But there is one thing that I have always wanted. It’s been a secret. I want a kitchen ~ a big kitchen. My own kitchen with all the gadgets I want. If I told you the truth, besides gadgets, I would like it to be a big kitchen. Two refrigerators - or one really big one. Two ovens, one at eye level and one an ordinary one. And a gas range. I want room for a table in the middle of my big kitchen. With big windows facing west on one side and east on the other side.

By the way, I have a great granddaughter now so when she's little bigger we'll be baking cookies and bread and lots of good things, so I'll also need a good sturdy stool for her to stand on, please and her own 'cooking corner'.

Well that’s all I want and really I don’t expect it. Not because I don’t think you couldn’t get it here in time, but I really don’t know what I’d do with all that space. I guess I just wanted to write  one more letter to you.

Your friend, Susan

P.s. Of course, there would need to be a corner for a window seat with book shelves lined with cookbooks and storybooks

P.P.S. And if it’s not too much to ask, I’d need just a little cottage complete with a writing room with a roll top desk and a child's table and chair.

P.P.P.S. Would it be lacking wisdom if I asked for a weekly maid service…..and a garden for vegetables and flowers? (Complete with a set of child's garden tools)

“Only now have you lived long enough 

to know the child that you shall always remain.”

~ Martin I. Green, Santa: My Life and Times

Moving Forward ~2

This is a short story from past Christmas time blog posts. Originally written in December of 2015 it was titled: The Next Part of the Story. I've done a fair bit of editing and revisioning of this story. 

Moving Forward

“ I wish I could believe you.” 

Estelle, Chantelle’s mother, insisted that she was quite happy, but Chantelle didn’t believe her. She had watched her always smiling and gentle mother live her life after her father died when Chantelle was 12 years old. There was still too much fanciful thinking in the way she approached most things, especially Christmas. Her mom still played dance music, volunteered at shelters and nursing homes. She especially seemed to love the Christmas parties, serving food and choosing dance partners from groups that could barely stand up, let alone glide and spin like their parents had. Her twin, Tanya, was not home for Christmas this year. They talked and worried a lot about their mom. Tanya didn’t worry that much and Chantelle was frustrated. Tanya would tell her to let their mom alone. “So she still with believes in magic at Christmas time? So what? Chantelle’s brothers were not getting home until Christmas morning. Neither Timothy nor Carter seemed to have the least bit of concern. All they talked about was their jobs in other cities. Chantelle, without any recent boyfriend, had arrived early and would be staying on with her mother past the New Year. It seemed so very sad sometimes that her mother believed in the magic of dance, even more so, at Christmas. Couldn’t she just face that her ‘beloved Oliver’ was gone. And for ten years! She didn’t have to keep living everything from the past.

Chantelle heard the front door and laughter. Her mother called out ‘Chantelle are you home? Come here I have someone I want you to meet.” Chantelle rolled her eyes. Not one of those people from the shelter. Her mother insisted on bringing home people, feeding them and letting them bathe. There was one woman and her little one that she let stay all one Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! Her mother was so very kind to so many others.

Chantelle had been curled up on the couch reading a mystery novel. Already in her bath robe and pyjama’s, she was hardly prepared to play host. All she wanted was an evening of quiet in front of the fireplace. Christmas lights and a reading lamp lit the living room softly. And now this interruption,

“Chantelle. This is Howard.You may have met him before.” Chantelle looked up and blushed. Her mother was introducing a very handsome, well dressed man who smiled broadly, his blue eyes bright and kind. She stuttered out something polite and ran quickly upstairs, calling down a loud whisper from the landing “Mother. Get up here! Who is this guy?”

“Excuse me, Howard. My daughter is calling. I’ll be right back and get us some hot tea.”

Isobel ran lightly up stairs as though she was still dancing. She sat down with her daughter, her own kind grey eyes lit up like they hadn’t been for years. “Howard and I have been working together at volunteer work for many years. Tonight we went walking in such beautiful crisp winter air, snow crunching beneath our feet and stars twinkling above. Just like your father and I, and just like Howard and his wife did apparently. We talked a lot about those married years. I’ve always known him as such a kind man, so good with everyone we work with. It was quite a surprise that after all these years, we really didn’t know very much about each other. We’ll be going dancing on New Year’s Eve. Now, please, get dressed and come meet him. You’ll like him.”

Her mom was so obviously excited that Chantelle just hugged her and said “Give me a minute and I’ll be down in a flash.”

“A sense of concern for others gives our lives meaning; 

it is the root of all human happiness.”

~ Dalai Lama

Mountains to Prairies

Sunday, December 22:  I haven’t been on a road trip for a long time. It started out in the dark. Only Vancouver’s street lights lighting the beginning of the trip. Traffic is light at 5 a.m. in the city and especially outside of the city. Most people are still asleep or just getting started. For the first couple of hours it was just quiet and dark. Quiet except for Stuart McLean telling us Christmas stories. There were three of us in the truck. A truck was packed tight for to be a long trip. I was one of the passengers. After the weather warnings, road closures and heavy snows of Friday and Saturday the morning was still and quiet. The sun not yet up so the level of cloud was uncertain. The most traffic we encountered was a semitrailer or two. Trying to get photos of the amazing snow covered trees was almost impossible. Once over the summit, coming down into the valleys toward Kamloops the sky began to lighten showing us the textures of hills and trees and layered with snow.

All the cautions we entertained and received to wait out the weather became very real. As we entered Jasper National Park, we were advised of a very tragic and horrendous traffic accident occurred several kilometres ahead, stopping traffic. Hundreds of us were stopped with several of us getting out of our vehicles. A thin layer of ice covered the highway. Brief chats ensued about what may have happened and how long we’d be stopped. Several travellers farther up the line of cars, ultimately turned their cars around to retrace some of their miles. After about 3 hours, traffic started to move slowly forward with other brief stops as vehicles from the other direction were let through. As we passed the scene of the accident, the devastation was brought into stark relief. Saddened by this accidental tragedy, we were also grateful for heeding all cautions, safety preparations and, ultimately, our own safety.

Christmas for some will never, ever be the same. The danger of the heavy snows is far too easily dismissed on our highways. The beauty of the mountains and snow covered trees surrounded us distracting us with its magnificence. 

Monday, December 23:  Last evening I visited with my sister Kate in St. Albert and at this writing, arriving in darkness, my son and I are in Regina for our much anticipated Christmas visits with family and friends. 

“I may not have gone where I intended to go but 

I think I have ended up where I intended to be.”

~ Douglas Adams

A 'charlie brown' story: Becoming a Christmas Tree - 3rd Edition

This story was written from the perspective of a grumpy old fir tree. Retitled A 'charlie brown' story, I originally wrote this story in 2006 before I even started this blog. Although edited last night, I awoke early this morning fairly certain I wasn't done yet. The possibilities were: toss the whole thing out, cut it in half, or just do some more editing. I re-read it this morning and have decided on more editing for what is a story as 'charlie brown' as the Christmas tree.

A 'charlie brown' story: 

Becoming a Christmas Tree - 3rd Edition

When I was growing up, older trees talked excitedly about becoming Christmas trees when the snow was deep and cold. Slowly each year, one by one or in great bunches, many were taken away. None ever came back to tell me what it was really like. I was one of the older trees now, but too short and stumpy, my branches too crooked to be a fancy Christmas tree I started to give up. I heard it all. One cold, snowy winter, I paid attention to all those stories about becoming a Christmas tree. All the stories were only rumours. You know ~ from small families of humans coming into the forest for their own trees. The words 'warm’ and ‘dry’ with just a drink of water every now and then, did catch my attention. I didn’t think I’d care for the tinsel and lights and bright coloured balls, but thought maybe they were lighter than heavy snow that I put up with every winter. Maybe quieter than the noisy birds? But those words, 'warm and dry', sounded so good. Maybe I would be chosen the next time. 

~

“Hey Joe! What about this one? Should we leave it? Doesn’t look like much more than firewood to me.”   

“Nope, we’re supposed to take everything.  The others can figure out what to do with it. We just cut’em.”  

~

And now look at me. If you can. Down here, at the bottom of a pile of a great pile of us. Then, the humans come in here pawing through us all. When their hands do find me, they think I am part of some other tree. Pulling at me then letting go in disappointment when they saw my crooked bent branches.

And the words I’ve heard! The very worst? “Firewood ~ that’s all it’s good for.” I heard that over and over! I never wanted to even singe! Warm and dry only ~ not burned to ashes! After all I’d been through, I deserved to be decorated too.  

As if that weren't enough, I heard “Well that’s a charley brown Christmas tree if I ever saw one.” And: “Someone will buy him ~ someone with no sense and too many decorations."  

Another rudely said:  “Our room is far too grand for that ugly old stump. I don’t even know why they’ve kept it in this lot.” 

The only good thing about being on the bottom of the heap? No nasty crows and filthy seagulls sitting on me after closing time. Occasionally some dog would have the audacity to sidle up to me, lift his leg and urinate on me! The best times were when a cat or another small furry creature would nestle into my thin branches. Then I did get a bit of warmth. 

Oh, I so wished these humans would just get on with it. These heaps and heaps of bushier trees piled on top of me are heavy! I really don’t know why I thought it would be any better here than in the forest. Standing up to my branches in snow, my needles getting sopping wet in rain, and birds relieving themselves on my branches seemed bad enough. I'm in a much bigger fix here!  

~

Finally alone in the Christmas tree lot, lights still blinking over the big sign: ‘Fresh cut Christmas trees!’ Fresh! Hmph! I’ve been lying here in this muck for a month. All the others have gone and here I am ~ cold and lonely, with my bare bottom exposed for all to see. Soggy branches on the bottom and drying branches up top! My branches stiffer and colder with each incredibly slow day. Being fire wood is beginning to sound good. Oh, I do wish that little human would stop crying. He’s dripping salt water all over me. He’s holding my top branch so tight he’s going to take all my few remaining needles off! ‘Get that human away from me!’ There was no wind to make me talk, so my plea was useless.

Then I heard a soft voice reminding me of home in the forest in springtime: “OK sweetie, he’s really not much! I don’t know what your dad’s going to think. You remember what he said? He wanted a tall, bushy tree and this one is short and stumpy.” 

Surprise! I was picked up out of the muck! It felt so good to at last to have the dirty melted snow shaken onto the ground. I could hear my branches sigh with relief as the young mother tucked me in the back of the little family’s beat up old car. I could let my branches relax. My crooked trunk lay on a warm, soft blanket in the old car.  The little human was no longer crying, thank goodness. One chubby little hand stretched from the front seat to hold onto that unruly twig at my very top. In old car’s warmth, I suddenly felt like a decorated Christmas tree with a star on top. The little human and I fell asleep together.

"It's not what's under the Christmas tree that matters, it's who's around it."

~ Charlie Brown