Little Women (2018)

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.