Little Women (2018)

A luminous adaptation, with Hawke as one more memorable “Jo” in a long and glorious line of them.

Caswill and her team wisely let these performances and this great writing do most of the lifting, but rest assured that the direction, cinematography, costume and production design, and the simple but intoxicating score are all capable at worst, lovely at best, and thoughtful all the way through.

It's always a challenge tackling such a familiar and beloved story, and bringing enough freshness or relevance to justify devoting three hours to it. Still, it's hard to find many weaknesses -- manly or otherwise -- in this latest take on Little Women.

Warm and intimate, with an unforced realism that keep schmaltz to a minimum. [30 Apr - 13 May 2018, p.12]

Warm, idyllic and impeccably acted.

The performances are generally fine, if a bit lacking in star quality.

The casting is solid, with Emily Watson particularly affecting as Marmee. The star, though, is Maya Hawke, who captures the spirited Jo nicely as she grows into a committed writer and uncompromising lover.

Warm, welcoming and occasionally tear-jerking, this three-hour production goes down like a warm glass of milk at bedtime.

Once director Vanessa Caswill boils away the innocence, Little Women becomes a more substantial drama. ... While the four roles could have been played by stronger actresses, they’re fairly well-matched. Watson and Lansbury are left to carry the subtlety. Both do it well, making us long for “Older Women,” a version that views the high-strung March girls from another perspective.

A new two-part series, premiering Sunday on PBS’s “Masterpiece,” feels a little weak at the outset, with the story streamlined by “Call the Midwife” creator Heidi Thomas’s screenplay and arranged by director Vanessa Caswill in such a prettified way that it looks more like a “Little Women” Instagram feed than a timely interpretation. ... The performances, however, rise to the novel’s reputation.

There's some sense of missed opportunity in how rarely this Little Women finds a distinctive way to view and interpret the travails of the March family, especially during the second episode, which lands several required emotional punches, but mostly meanders. Still, fans of the book will be pleased with the creators' relative fidelity to the source material, and will be appreciative of the strong, generation-spanning cast.

At their best, adaptations offer new insight or modern context for classic literary works. This PBS production is sweet, light, and frothy—but it’s in no danger of doing either.

As it is, the overall effect is undeniably pretty but somewhat baffling, a bit like Instagrammable avolato. It’s a well-intentioned and updated Little Women, but not quite a classic.

What we get is a fairly faithful rendition of the book’s events that lacks the warmth and depth of feeling that make the book worth reading. There are some flat-footed attempts at lyricism, or modernization, through the intrusive use of music, or short passages when the cuts come more quickly and the camera moves in for off-center close-ups.

To its detriment, Little Women returns to the classic PBS “Masterpiece” style of being true to a piece of literature nearly to the point of drowning it in formaldehyde. One positive note is Caswill’s cinematography, evocative of an aesthetic that resembles Hudson River School landscape art in miniature. Woefully, the action occurring within these settings is less interesting. ... It’s fine that no alluring strangers show up, and maddening that none of Alcott’s uplifting zest does either.

The camera plods along, lingering on pretty shots of nature. A bee buzzes a flower. Snowflakes fall on a New England square. Brooks babble. It begins to feel less like a drama than a giveaway calendar. Skilled as the actors are, it’s difficult for them to rise above the creakiness.