Little Women is a masterfully interwoven love-tragedy about family, loyalty, and finding yourself without abandoning your roots. Following the March sisters—Amy (played first by a young Kirsten Dunst, then as an adult by Samantha Mathis), Beth (Claire Danes), Meg (Trini Alvarado) and the primary lead, Jo (Winona Ryder)—living with their mother Marmee (Susan Sarandon) as they wait for their father’s return from war, it dots how they deal with growing up with no money or status, and only each other for support. Together and apart, the four face love, financial hardship, medical complications, death, and birth, with Jo trying to gain her independence without leaving her family behind. While that proves challenging as the four grow (apart), their spirits remain entangled by their sisterly love—and their shared love for home. Jo explores herself through the alleys of NYC and the works of Charles Dickens, ensuring she does what she can for her family without sacrificing what makes her Jo—especially as one sister’s life is forced to end.

Life is a collection of meetings and partings. We are born, we grow accustomed to our surroundings—family, friends, home, school, work, recreation—things change, we grow used to that, and we die. There hasn’t yet been a cure to that last part, and director Gillian Armstrong knows just how to exemplify life’s preciousness given death’s eternal victory. Firstly, the entire cast is charming. Ryder is a scene-stealer, capturing attention with every bit of grief, laughter, or theater and expresses. She makes a fine lead, carrying the film with the tendered uncertainty necessary for such a coming-of-age period narrative. Alvarado is a lovely big sister, providing the kind of courageous support that she and the rest of the family need in trying times. Dunst and Mathis are equally chippy as Amy, the youngest (and most naive) of the bunch, but Dunst does a slightly better job than Mathis in matching that energy. Sarandon is a tender but secretly battle-hardened mom, ready and able to do whatever it takes to keep her kids happy and safe. Christian Bale, as Jo’s young love interest and Amy’s later one, portrays the best version of Theodore “Laurie” Laurence, the lonely noblemen who proves his loyalty to and love for the March family more than once. Together, these talented actresses and actor display the kinds of inequities and disadvantages women experienced in 19th century Boston, such as being confined to less intellectually imposed work and pressured to be constantly beautiful for their male pursuers and eventual husbands.

Jo, for example, gets invited to a male-only (excluding her) intellectual lunch chat, to which friends of her then friend and later husband explain how women shouldn’t make big decisions like voting at all, to which Jo replies “your logic is infallible, as women should have the right vote not on the fact of their womanhood, but because they too are citizens of this country.” Women’s suffrage and right to a voice in general are thrown about in this Little Women rendition, with the latter still a pressing issue today. Meg, on the other hand, deals directly with the opposite side of that spectrum; “I like the compliments, I like being told I’m pretty,” she exclaims after getting accused of passing herself around to every man at a gathering. But in so doing, she not only gives up the potential of more, but gives into the accepted darkness and hatred common in upper-class social circles: “The poor are always with us. You are so good to remind us,” a cruel acquaintance says to Meg after Meg argues how all their dresses are made from Chinese and other foreign child labor. Along with loads of symbolism and metaphors sprinkled throughout to reflect these sisters’ lives—especially as Beth succumbs to her years-long sickness-induced heart weakening—Little Women elegantly balances between the life defining moments and hints at larger woes beyond the stars’ control.

Thus, while there’s a lot packed in for an under-two-hour film and Amy grows perhaps disjointedly with her older version’s miscast, Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women is an astounding feat of both sentiment and social awareness. For original Little Women novel fans, old literature film fans and Winona Ryder fans alike, there’s much to take away from this.

Screens in 35 mm Christmas Day, 4:00 & 6:30 pm @ The Brattle Theatre
Part of the ongoing repertory series: Columbia 100: Nineties Nostalgia