I have an ongoing argument with some friends about how I refuse to watch Interstellar again, despite considering it a beautiful and well-crafted film. It’s just so sad, I tell them, even with its hopeful ending. A desperate, choking lump forms in my chest as soon as I hear the futuristic swells of Hans Zimmer’s score and I have to remove myself before I am overtaken by emotion.
But at the same time, the movie I choose as my feelgood film is one that has reduced me to a sobbing, snotty mess time and time again, whether I’m watching it curled up with my cat on the couch, swaddled in blankets while sick in bed or jostling with my seatmate for the armrest on an airplane. And just like with the score from Interstellar, the moment I hear Thomas Newman’s wistful little oboe intro of the 1994 version of Little Women, I can feel my eyes well up with tears.
As you’ve probably discerned already, I tend to feel things very strongly. Probably one of my most psychotic traits is that I have to spoil the endings of most movies before I watch them for the first time because if I get too attached to a character and that character dies, it could take me several days to recover. But sometimes you just need a good cry, and that’s exactly what Gillian Armstrong’s Little Women is for me.
At its core, Little Women – a coming-of-age tale about four March sisters growing up in New England during the civil war – is a love letter to girlhood. Originally a novel by Louisa May Alcott published in 1868, the story has repeatedly been adapted for film, television and stage over the past century, in part because of the timelessness of its characters. Generations of girls have grown up identifying with the hopes, dreams, struggles and triumphs of Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy – arguably the original quartet of female archetypes for girls to attach their personalities to, the predecessor of Sex and the City’s “I’m such a Samantha” or “You’re so Carrie” (Maturity is understanding that women contain multitudes and recognizing that we likely embody the qualities of multiple characters – on some days, like my astrological chart, I identify as a Jo sun, Amy rising and others as a Jo sun, Beth rising).
Tearful moments abound throughout Little Women, played out magnificently by the 1994 cast. There’s the grief and fury of Winona Ryder as Jo when she discovers her burned manuscript, the quiet fortitude of Susan Sarandon as their mother Marmee as she gathers her girls in a hug before leaving to care for their war-injured father. Coming-of-age stories are not always sad, but by definition, to grow up means closing a chapter in your life and letting go of the innocence of childhood – a bittersweet experience, no matter the circumstances. Little Women captures that bittersweetness through a number of milestones for the sisters – and then turns the emotional dial into a knife in your chest in the second act with the death of Beth. Nothing symbolizes the end of childhood quite like the devastating gutpunch of the kind, timid Beth dying quietly in her childhood bed. Claire Danes as Beth plays this moment with a heart-wrenching sweetness, her chin trembling as she tells a crying Jo that she is not afraid and that she can be brave like her.
Beth’s death is such a well-known tearjerker in the cultural milieu that it’s used as a punchline in the sitcom Friends. “Beth is really, really sick,” Joey tearfully tells Rachel in the episode where he reads Little Women for the first time. I go into every rewatch knowing that I will be inconsolable within an hour or so. And yet I keep returning because as sad as it is, I emerge from my tears feeling content, with my heart full. This is the benefit of a good cry, a release of bottled-up emotions. With Little Women, my release of emotions is always tempered with a sort of fuzzy nostalgia that comes with revisiting your childhood. The 1994 version will always be my go-to because that is the version I grew up with and watched with my own sister when we were girls. But I also love Greta Gerwig’s interpretation of the story in the 2019 remake, just as I’m sure I will love any and all future remakes. One time I lucked out on a long trip home for the holidays and both adaptations were available on the in-flight entertainment. I treated myself to a tear-heavy double feature and deboarded that plane feeling lighter, happier and more dehydrated than ever.
Little Women is available to rent digitally in the US, on Channel 4+ in the UK and to rent digitally in Australia
