Adaptation Comparison: Little Women

Today, I’m staying home for the people driving trucks and delivering needed materials/items.

I had it in mind to do a post like this shortly after I saw the 2019 version of Little Women, comparing it to the beloved 1994 version that’s been a favorite of mine for many years. However, I got busy writing Oscar reviews and never quite circled back around to it. I do want to write about it, though. Again, the 1994 adaptation holds a dear place in my heart, so the new film had a tall order in store for it, but while I’d say my overall preference remains with the version from my childhood, this most recent edition still brings some qualities that make it stand out in its own right (spoilers for both versions – as well as the book, obviously.)

I’ll admit that the 1994 cast is etched pretty indelibly in my mind. When I picture Jo, Beth, Marmee, or Laurie, for example, I very definitely think of Winona Ryder, Claire Danes, Susan Sarandon, and Christian Bale. All of them captured my imagination and chrystalized my impressions of the characters. The 2019 cast has some clear heavy hitters in it – for my money, the best are Saoirse Ronan’s Jo and Florence Pugh’s Amy, both bringing their own spins to the roles. A few of the other parts, though, feel a bit elusive. I love Laura Dern and Timothée Chalamet, but both feel slightly off to me as Marmee and Laurie, Dern a little too modern and Chalamet more like Marches’ kid brother (especially in the adult sections.)

Likewise, the 1994 version is the winner for me when it comes to some of the most iconic scenes: Jo and Laurie dancing at the party, Mr. Laurence giving Beth the piano, the proposal scene, Jo sitting at Beth’s deathbed. Even small moments like the March sisters wistfully packing up their Christmas breakfast to give to the Hummels – if I close my eyes, I can picture them perfectly. The movie nicely weaves together a smooth narrative despite copious necessary edits to the source material, and it all coalesces into a beautiful adaptation.

The 2019 version, in turn, is a little riskier. It feels a bit self-conscious at times as it forges its own separate path from the 1994 adaptation, and there are moments when the chances it takes aren’t altogether successful (it really bugs me that Jo wavers on her earlier rejection of Laurie toward the end, and as great as Florence Pugh is as Amy throughout the movie, there’s no way anyone can buy her as a 12-year-old in the younger scenes.) That said, there are other times when its approach really lands, and it creates some utterly-fabulous scenes. I really like the device of weaving in scenes of Jo/Alcott(?) with her publisher, negotiating over the price and the details of the story (like whether Jo ends up married or not,) and the nonlinear narrative really enhances the film at points, creating great moments of poignancy by juxtaposing the past and the present.

It’s no secret that one of the 2019 film’s biggest assets is its portrayal of Amy. Kirsten Dunst is wonderful in the 1994 version, but the older version with Samantha Mathis seems to pale a little after her, and she never quite feels like “our” Amy. Not so with Pugh in the new film, issues with age and believability aside. The film really breathes life and understanding into the older Amy, showing the connective tissue between the girl and the young woman as well as demonstrating the ways that Amy and Jo, always at each other’s throats, aren’t nearly as different as they might think. Amy laying out to Laurie the reasons that she plans to marry a rich man really contextualize her attitude for the world she lives in, much more reminiscent of Angelica Schuyler in “Satisfied” than the shallow/materialistic modern implications we tend to place on viewpoints like that. The film also does the story a major service of fully committing to the Amy/Laurie romance. It’s in part another gift of the nonlinear narrative, because we see Laurie and Amy in scenes together before we even see him meet Jo in the past, but on the whole, the new film does a much better job on selling me on these two than the 1994 movie. It does so, however, somewhat at the expense of Jo/Laurie, which never quite pops onscreen like it does in 1994.

A few other sentimental favorite aspects of mine from the 2019 adaptation. I’ve always loved Beth and Mr. Laurence together, and I really like how this movie emphasizes their gentle friendship – I think the scene of Jo and Mr. Laurence comforting one another after Beth’s death is probably the one that made me cry the hardest in the whole movie. Some of the added dialogue throughout the film is simply wonderful (the 1994 version does this well too,) my favorites being Jo and Amy’s debate about whether Jo’s book is worth reading and Jo and Meg’s conversation before Meg’s wedding. And finally, I just adore the absolute noise and chaos of so many of the sister scenes, all the chattering and laughing and mayhem. This is especially true when Laurie brings Jo and Meg home after the party and sees all the March girls in their element. There’s something so warm and inviting about their collective sisterly madness, and it’s clear from one look that Laurie is in love with it already.

Altogether, two very different adaptations, and while I’m not prepared to have the 1994 version unseated in any way, the new version takes some interesting chances and brings a lot of great stuff to the table as well. I’m glad to have both to appreciate in their own ways.

Book-Movie Comparison: A Single Man

And here’s one more post about A Single Man, as long as I still have the book fresh in my memory. This is an instance where I saw the movie prior to reading the book, and even though it takes some major liberties, I do continue to love the film – I love both for what they are, what each brings individually (spoilers for the book and the film, which aren’t always the same thing!)

I’ve mentioned before what I regard as the film’s greatest asset: its use of color to create a visual depiction of George’s depression and grief after the loss of Jim. I love the way most of the film is shot in a washed-out sepia tone, only letting the colors shine fully for 1) flashbacks to George’s life with Jim and 2) the fleeting moments in the present where George makes a brief connection with someone that cuts through the fog of his melancholy. I put it up there with Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Carrion Comfort” as masterfully, genuinely capturing the sheer weariness of depression.

Which pairs masterfully with the opening sequence of the book, in which George wakes and gradually “becomes.” The book’s art is in its words while the film’s strongest poignancy is visual, but both are equally effective at painting a picture of what George is experiencing.

The film is less effective at recreating other aspects of George’s emotions, chiefly his annoyance at society and his anger at homophobia. However, it doesn’t fail to do so. Rather, it doesn’t really try to do so. The movie’s version of George is a different animal, unflappably cool and stiff-upper-lip about 90% of the time, and Colin Firth plays that version to a tee. It makes me ache to see him quietly going about his day, with no one recognizing how heartbroken he is. Part of this, I think, is just an intentional choice on the part of Tom Ford and co., but I imagine part of it is that George doesn’t express nearly as much of his anger and annoyance out loud. It’s all in the narration, his inner thoughts about his neighbors and fellow professors and front steps in San Francisco. It’s always tough to fully bring out a character in an adaptation who, on the page, is so internal. In that way, maybe it’s better that the film veers off and does its own thing, making its own clear choices instead of failing to measure up to the book’s.

While the film doesn’t mix in as much humor as the book does, it still pulls it in in small ways. Firth’s staid delivery makes for a nice deadpan on the mescaline story, and I enjoy the imagined visual of Grant and his family in their fallout shelter while Grant drones on about using different contractors so no one guesses what you’re building (that’s probably the moment in which the film best captures George’s wryer aspect.)

I will say, though, that after I read the book, it did bother me that the movie uses the connective tissue of George planning to commit suicide at the end of the day. I understand the urge to give the day some added weight right at the beginning, because the book is really just “a day in the life” for the most part. But suicide? It makes me sad that the 2009 film hits the “tragic gay” aspect harder than the 1964 novel. In the book, George is grieving and aimless, but he keeps going. This is one day, and he plans to do it again tomorrow. He isn’t building up to killing himself. Even though the film uses the device well and shows us a lot about their version of George through his actions leading up to it, I wish it made different decisions in that area.

Book-Movie Comparison: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Like The Order of the Phoenix, The Half-Blood Prince does a little adaptation tug-of-war.  There are parts of it that are just excellent (places where, speaking as someone who’s not overly crazy about the book, I feel it improves on the source material a little,) but other parts really drop the ball.  As such, while it has some really strong things going for it, it’s hard to give it the full stamp of approval (spoilers.)

We’ll start with what I like.  As usual, casting is spot-on, and Jim Broadbent is just inspired as Slughorn.  And beyond his performance, I really like what the film does with the character.  They maintain the core of who Slughorn is, absolutely, with his “collection” of future stars among the student body, but they also show how that’s a little pathetic and in places even bring a small amount of pathos to the character.  The monologue he gives about his fish is absolutely lovely.

Draco’s whole plot is really well-done too.  It’s fun watching the young actors grow into their skills over the years (some more so than others, of course,) and looking back on The Sorcerer’s Stone, I wouldn’t have thought Tom Felton would be as genuinely excellent as he is here.

This is the one movie in which a good chunk of the teen romance stuff works for me, even though, as I said, it gets super tiresome in the book.  This is mostly down to Lavender and Cormac and how much fun they are:  between Cormac’s pompousness and Lavender just giving it her all, both of them entertain in every scene they’re in.  And let’s be real – every scene of someone under the influence of a potion is awesome.  The Felix Felicis scene is especially great.  As dark as this story gets, it needs these moments of pure delight.

Where the movie chiefly missteps is, oddly enough, in its two main plots.  Harry and Dumbledore’s study of Voldemort’s past is barely there – the majority of the memories are cut out altogether, and the few that remain lack most of the commentary to show their relevance.  While we do hit the absolute highlights of introducing Horcruxes, there’s so much missing about Dumbledore’s speculation/reasoning as to what the Horcruxes are that the knowledge is basically pointless.  It’s an instance where it doesn’t hurt this film as much as it does the next one; it makes no sense how the trio even begin to start looking for the Horcruxes in The Deathly Hallows, which was tenuous enough in the book.

The Half-Blood Prince plot also loses quite a bit.  Again, the bones of the storyline are there, and there are individual scenes that are really well done – the sectumsepra scene is wonderfully-realized – but on the whole, it feels like an afterthought in a movie that’s named after it, which is weird.

Finally, Tonks and Lupin?  If they were gonna reduce it to literally one line in the whole movie, I don’t know why they bothered.  Seriously, what was the point?