Most coming-of-age films are about exploring and finding a sense of freedom, identity, or purpose in life. Little Women is about what you lose to get there. Greta Gerwig’s film follows the four March sisters in Civil War-era Massachusetts. Beloved by their parents and people around them, the sisters go through complicated times of grief, ambition, and the painful cost of becoming something.
If you have ever watched Little Women, chances are the first thing to come to mind isn’t one single moment. It is the feeling of the film itself. The past is shown through warm, golden tones, while the present is cold and muted. Gerwig tells the story out of order, jumping between the past and present without warning. The scenes from the past evoke a sense of nostalgia that Jo, the central character, feels for the childhood she is slowly losing.
The non-linear narrative is the film’s most distinctive choice. The past is warm and joyful, full of life. The present is dark and grey, stripped of life. Gerwig’s use of color as memory is masterful. When young Jo laughs with her sisters around the table, we already know what she’s lost. This means that every past scene carries an undertone of grief and longing. We are watching something disappear in real time, and Gerwig makes sure we feel it.
At the center of the film is Jo’s ambition and her need to accomplish her goals. Unlike many women of that time, she resists marriage. She moves to New York to write — to be known solely for her own work. And yet, the world around her still pressures her for one thing — to find a husband. What makes the film feel so alive is that Gerwig refuses to let Jo reject these old ideologies easily. Jo wants everything: to be published, freedom from everyone, love and family, and the film lets her dream without judgment. Even the ending refuses to give a straight answer. We are left to question whether Jo marries the professor or if she remains true to herself and does not marry.
Each of the March sisters also answers the same question differently: What do you do with the life you’ve been given? Meg chooses love of her own accord, and the film respects her for it rather than treating it as a compromise. Amy is the most “practical” of the sisters. She knows that for a woman without money, it is imperative that marriage is not romance but survival. “I’m not a poet, I’m just a woman,” she says to Laurie. Beth, the quietest sister, embraces stillness, and in doing so, she becomes the emotional center of the film and the sisters. Where another film would make one of the sisters’ choices superior, Little Women celebrates them all.
The scene that stayed with me is Jo’s fireside speech, where she declares that “Women, they have minds and they have souls as well just hearts.” This part is written by Gerwig, not Alcott, a deliberate addition to a period piece. She does not pretend the film is purely historical. The themes and ideologies presented in the film are still relevant today. She lets the modern feeling bleed through and it makes the whole thing feel urgent and alive. It is a reminder that Alcott’s Little Women still has things to say, and Gerwig makes sure everyone listens.
Little Women is ultimately not a nostalgic letter to girlhood. It is a movie about the agony of becoming and the price of time passing. Gerwig turns a classic into something that feels genuinely new with its non-linear narrative, warm and cold color schemes, and refusal to dictate what women should want. Little Women serves as a reminder that neither growing up nor discovering one’s identity is a linear process. Some movies portray life’s significant moments. This one encapsulates the sensation of living through them, which is more difficult to describe.
