Little Women. - movie reviews

National Review, Feb 20, 1995 by John Simon

Finally, an American classic: Little Women. This is the fourth filmed avatar of Louisa May Alcott's hearty perennial, and except for the absence of Katharine Hepburn, the best yet. Appropriately directed by a woman - albeit an Australian - Gillian Armstrong, it has a nice, tactile, lived-in feel, with clothes, furniture, and faces good enough to make you want to run your hands over them. The touted screenplay by Robin Swicord, which allegedly brings in ample references to the times (Civil War, transcendentalism), does very little of that. Just as well; we don't want Whitman and Emerson poking around in our Alcott.

We get such pleasing presences as Susan Sarandon's Marmee, John Neville's Mr. Laurence, the long-missed Mary Wickes's Aunt March, and all the girls, especially the Jo of Winona Ryder, and the young Amy of Kirsten Dunst. The others hold their own, even if Gabriel Byrne is an unlikely Central European. Miss Ryder, at one point, refers to a novel by Dickens as Dombey and Sons, no doubt assuming it to be the tale of a good father and his four darling boys.