The Subtle Power of Greta Gerwig's Characters

Something that I really appreciate about Greta Gerwig is her ability to bring out the importance of the everyday struggle.

I would die for this cast.

Greta Gerwig has been in the business for a bit as a writer and an actress but caught a lot of attention in 2017 with the solo-directed A24 dramedy Lady Bird. In it, Saoirse Ronan plays the witty, laser-focused Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, a 2002 high school senior longing for bigger things than a life in Sacramento, California (also, I seriously chose to write an article where I’m going to have to spell ‘Saoirse’ multiple times, here we go). The movie is mostly a series of vignettes exploring Lady Bird’s life and struggles, fighting through love and loss and the high school struggle of trying to forge your own future. Nothing massive is at stake, and yet the movie sells you on the drama of Lady Bird’s relationships as she lives in tension with her mother and her best friend. The entire movie hinges on these relationships, and it works. It works in a way that a lot of movies may falter; it’s just a movie about people. Real people, people with normal struggles and normal hardships and stakes which feel massive to the individual. Every character in Lady Bird feels genuine, even the side characters who could easily just not exist in this movie. They’re characters that would be completely ignored in the hands of a lesser director. But Gerwig breathes such life into each and every one of them. The dissonant adopted brother, the subtle drama teacher; every single character has such genuine humanity to them. It’s not necessarily a film that is in-your-face groundbreaking, but it executes everything it intends to with such perfect strength and conviction. It is quiet but immaculately built.

I honestly don't have a joke for these captions, this cast is just really good. Also finding stills for such a beautiful movie is harder than it should be.

Gerwig continues these talents into Little Women. In my confession, I haven’t read the original book or watched the original film. I went in with no real knowledge of the Marches or the family and relationship drama that lay within this story. Clearly, this is a cast of characters that are deeply beloved to a lot of people – and rightly so. Little Women features a group of four sisters, centering on Ronan’s Jo March, and shows them living and struggling in the mid-1860s. With such high expectations from the source material, as well as her success with Lady Bird, one might imagine some trepidation going into Greta Gerwig’s next big film. But Little Women knocks it out of the park. Yet again, this movie functions more on intimate relationships than grand spectacle. Yet, I think what elevates Little Women above Lady Bird for me is that, in a way, the movie is able to do both. The story is told non-linearly, intercutting between ‘present’ day and the past. Gerwig masterfully uses lighting and colour palette, as well as several in-world hints, to keep the audience well aware of what time period they are in without needing subtitles or heavy-handed dialogue. The way she intercuts modern and past narratives also artfully builds on expectations and dramatic reveals. We find out early on that Timothée Chalamet’s Theodore ‘Laurie’ Laurence was rejected by Saorise Ronan’s Jo March, but we don’t see the circumstances of that rejection until well into the movie. Where the novel provided a basic, chronological outline, the less linear timeline of the movie allows a more sophisticated form to tell the story. In a few key moments, the parallelism of the two timeframes directly adds to the narrative. Gerwig’s interconnected storytelling allows her to flex her directorial skills in a way that Lady Bird wasn’t able to.

Credit to Jacqueline Durran for the stellar costuming in this movie. Everything is very period and very gorgeous. I want Chalament's clothes.

Yet, the earnest characters that Gerwig was able to present in Lady Bird are still very present. Each of the girls are filled with life and honesty. From what I understand, this is even more developed than the source material. Meg, Amy, and Beth all have tremendous depth and heart, and their diverse stories all feel real and natural. Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen; they give their all to this movie. Saoirse Ronan is, of course, a tour de force as Jo, but this movie gives such weight and relatability to all of the other sisters as well. Like, I was shocked to hear that a lot of people didn’t like Amy in the book because Pugh is incredible as her and gives her struggle such gravity. Watson and Scanlen do the same. Then, Laura Dern knocks it out of the park yet again as a strong, maternal figure of wisdom and power. Meryl Streep is Meryl Streep as always. Chalamet has such delicate force to him as well. I could gush about this cast forever because Little Women is all about its characters. Every scene of the sisters just existing together is so fun and joyous. This is one of those movies that you just want to live in forever.

Just give Saoirse Ronan all the awards, please.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t gush about Ronan as Jo March. I will always be drawn to strong writer characters, but Jo March captures so much in just a couple hours. March is a powerhouse, convinced of her passions and her goals and ever-determined to fulfill them. The waxing and waning of creative passion, the fight to be recognized, the tension of critique; Ronan embodies all of that so perfectly as Jo March. Moreover, her struggles with love and loneliness are so painfully evocative. Just thinking of her key scenes gets me emotional. Gerwig powerfully incorporates words from the original author, Louisa May Alcot, to make Jo March’s tension all the more real and palpable. Jo March wants to rise above her time and be independent, but still wants to be loved, and that aches. Gerwig incorporates a framing device with Jo March’s publisher that continues to emphasize that tension. It’s a frustration that is incredibly specific, and yet somehow also universal. Greta Gerwig yet again nails this balance of evocative characters that are so filled with life as to be timeless.

More credit to Alexandre Desplat's very pretty score.

But I think this movie best conveys Gerwig’s style in its conclusion. As the film begins to draw to a close, there is a conversion between Jo and Amy as to the purpose of writing. Jo insists that “writing doesn’t confer importance. It reflects it.” She is fictionalizing and expressive her own life through writing and sees her task almost as a defense of the small stories of these women. But Amy disagrees. “Writing things is what makes them important,” she says. And it’s this distinction which seems to illuminate Gerwig’s work. She brings a candle to the small struggles of the everyday soul and gives them weight and gravity. But more importantly, Gerwig brings to light the often unspoken bonds and lives of the ordinary woman. Just as Alcot used her original novel to fictionalize her struggles, and just as Jo March does the same, through her films Greta Gerwig brings her own experiences to film. Lady Bird and Jo March become characters of Gerwig's own memory. In so doing, she brings importance to what may seem ordinary. Especially, Gerwig seems to emphasize the power and necessity of love and attention, major themes of both Little Women and Lady Bird. In her direction, Gerwig refuses to let these remain trite concepts or to let the lives of women remain as simple, unspoken tales. Rather, through her filmmaking, she imbues them with importance and shows just how much such subjects pervade daily life. Gerwig's characters all feel real because they are an evocation of reality, a call to remember and connect with that which already exists. Everyone knows a Jo March, a Laurie, an Amy. Often, we may find these characters within herself. Something that Gerwig does profoundly well is to show that these characters are not just universal of female or male experience, but universal to everyone's experience. I relate so powerfully to Jo March, and that's really cool. But there are those who will relate to her even more. There is a subtle power to Gerwig's craft, and one I feel I’m only just scratching the surface of.

I will watch Saorise talk about the power of women for ages.

Gerwig hasn’t been nominated for a Golden Globe or an Oscar this year, which is a tragedy. Her nomination for Lady Bird made her one of five women in Oscar history to receive any such recognition. I hope that changes in the coming years as she continues to release films with this silent, stunning awe about them. Her eye for humanity is relieving and wonderful, and the power of her characters must be experienced, rather than described. Go see Little Women, if you haven’t already. The March sisters have a lot to say, and so does Greta Gerwig.