FILM

"Little Women" Is the Cure for 2019

Try being cynical during this movie. We dare you.

Photo by Alex Litvin on Unsplash

When asked by well-meaning older relatives—with faith in capitalism still shining in their eyes—if I want to have children someday, I usually respond with something like, "With fascism on the rise and an inevitable resource war on the horizon? With each day of inaction marching humanity closer to utter annihilation at the hands of climate change? I don't want to ruin my t*ts, Grandma."

Needless to say, I am a cynic by nature and circumstance and definitely an insufferable smartass.

2019 only further exacerbated my tendency to look on the dark side. Afterall, how can anyone truly believe that humanity has any fundamental goodness left with Donald Trump as president, cross-body fanny packs gaining in popularity, and CATS the movie existing? It's been a long year of absurdity in popular culture and politics; so dark and absurd, in fact, that my usual go-to feel-good flicks no longer do much to assuage my sorrow. I watched Love Actually on Christmas Eve and felt as empty as Kira Knightly's sallow, wan cheeks. Not even the precious ghost dog in Coco could touch my existential dread this holiday season. I was beginning to feel that there was nothing that could make the horror of 2019 feel distant, until, hungover and full of Sunday chilli, I accompanied my immediate family on an outing to see Greta Gerwig's Little Women.

As my mother's favorite childhood book, Little Women has always held a special place in my family's collective consciousness. Despite this, admittedly, my expectations were low. I knew the story well, and while I loved its relentless optimism in previous eras of my life, I struggled to believe the endearing March family and their romantic, simple adventures could possibly shine any light on the complicated darkness of 2019. I expected it to only make me feel worse, like a person in a depressive episode seeing Christmas lights.



Based on Louisa May-Alcott's 1868 novel, the 2019 remake of Little Women stars Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, Tracy Letts, Bob Odenkirk, James Norton, Louis Garrel, Chris Cooper, and Meryl Streep. As the movie began, I was immediately arrested by the piercing blue of Ronan's eyes and the adorableness of Pugh's button nose, and things only got better from there. First of all, there was something so deeply appealing about Laura Dern as Marmie, the mother of the titular little women, that I questioned whether I wanted her to give me a bath or to take a bath with her. Anyway, Freud aside, the tears began to flow around minute 11 of the movie. I touched my damp face with shock. Since the night of the 2016 election, the tears of rage and sorrow have come with less and less frequency as numbness quietly set in. And yet, here I was...feeling? In 2019? Unheard of.

Matters only worsened as my cold, dead heart was warmed by the selflessness of Beth (Eliza Scanlen), only to be broken by her illness, revived by Emma Watson's dreaminess in a pink dress, sent soaring by Jo's (Saorise Ronan) insistence on following her dreams, and stirred again by Timothee Chalamet's ass in a pair of high-waisted trousers. Suddenly, my cares seemed to melt away. As Father finally returned from war, Donald Trump's Twitter account seemed like a distant dream. When Jo cried, "My sister!" as she pulled Amy from the frigid water, in my heart, the United Kingdom was still firmly a part of the European Union. As Frederic turned to see Jo clasping her heart during the opera and a slow smile spread across his face, it was as if low rise jeans had never come back in style.

Indeed, there is something so consciously optimistic about Greta Gerwig's movie, so rebelliously pure, that even I—infamous for lamenting the scientific improbability of balloons lifting a whole house during a screening of Up at 12 years old—couldn't find any foothold for cynicism. It almost made me want to give in to my biological drive to reproduce and justify it with "maybe my kid will cure cancer!" or, more accurately in that moment, "maybe my children will put on adorable plays for the other neighborhood children like the little women!" Essentially, the movie dares to exist outside our collective exhaustion and despair, insistent on coaxing us into a kind of childhood delight, but it's also not without political, impactful moments that are presented so cleverly amidst the earnestness that they don't feel part of the monotonous drone of "political" cinema. Of course, part of the credit for the brilliance of Little Women must be given to Louisa May-Alcott, who managed to craft a comforting salve for heartache out of a story that, on the surface, is often devastating. But it was a stroke of genius by Greta Gerwig to make this movie now, in the midst of a time of international tumult, to offer audiences two hours of genuine relief from the brutality of 2019.

If you feel yourself (like me) retreating into your cave of sarcastic jokes, existential dread, and black turtlenecks, go see Little Women and let yourself enjoy it without guilt. It serves as a vital reminder that as long as we have each other, good stories, and deeply-needed respite from the real world, we may be able to gather just enough strength to make 2020 better than 2019. Maybe it'll even be great.

FILM

Marriage Story Might Help You Understand Your Parents' Divorce

Divorce is an emotionally turbulent ride, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

Admittedly, I'm a little late to the hype train for Marriage Story, director Noah Baumbach's movie about a spiraling divorce between two people who still care about each other.

For months, seemingly every other article in the entire cine-sphere has been about how Marriage Story is Netflix's best movie of the year or how Adam Driver walked out of an interview after they showed a clip of him singing or how dancing Scarlett Johansson is a meme now.

So I got it. Marriage Story was supposed to be very good. But in spite of the accolades, I decided to hold off on watching it immediately. I had a feeling that, having grown up as a child of divorce, Marriage Story might induce some unpleasant flashbacks. I wanted to make sure I was in the right headspace to properly deal with that before going in.

To some extent, I was right. There are a lot of elements of Marriage Story that I imagine will drum up painful memories, both for people who have gone through divorces themselves and children who watched their parents go through the process. The most memorable scene in Marriage Story, perhaps, is the vicious argument between Adam Driver's Charlie and Scarlett Johansson's Nicole, wherein all of Charlie's pent up rage, both at Nicole and the divorce process, explodes. It's a scene absolutely surging with raw emotion, and it reminded me of all the fights I grew up watching at home.

But what truly makes Marriage Story great, aside from the impeccable performances from Driver and Johansson, is the catharsis it offers throughout. Baumbach's exploration of divorce is extremely nuanced, treating both of its lead characters with compassion and empathy. The movie opens with Charlie and Nicole reading letters that convey the things they love about one another, portraying both characters as exceedingly real. In the same way that sometimes people fall out of love over time, sometimes the same thing we once loved about someone transforms into something irreconcilable.



For instance, at one point in their relationship, Nicole loved Charlie's sense of direction in life and his ability to seemingly always know exactly what he wanted to do. But as their relationship proceeded, the downsides to that trait came into starker focus––Charlie always knew what he wanted to do, in large part, because he valued his own opinion and wants above everyone else's. Eventually, Nicole's love for that aspect of Charlie soured into the feeling that she had lost her own identity throughout their relationship.

The point to all of this is that, a lot of the time, children of divorce have a hard time reconciling two distinct images of their parents––the first image being their parents in a functioning relationship with one another and the second image being their parents as bitter enemies. Of course, this isn't true for all divorces, but it certainly was for me. Naturally, as children we oftentimes choose between our parents. But the beauty of Marriage Story is in its ability to show us an intricate, sometimes brutal conflict between two mostly decent people without making us pick a side.

Both Charlie and Nicole's hardships through the divorce process are on full display, and both believe that they're doing the right thing. They both love their son. Their relationship was complex, failing for multiple reasons, and their contempt is complicated by the fact that they both still care about one another. And after the dust settles, they figure out a way to be co-parents, even if it's not ideal for either party.

In a sense, Marriage Story is an almost wholesome view of divorce, ultimately conveying the message that even though divorce is harsh, brutal, awful even, eventually it will be over. And once it's over, people can heal, and people can change, and people who care about their children can continue to be there for them. My prevailing feeling by the end of Marriage Story wasn't bitterness or sadness, but hope. It's an emotionally turbulent ride, but there's a light at the end of the tunnel.

In the real world, people are much more complicated than whatever black-and-white images we may have of them from specific points in our lives. People change over time, and if they can change for the worse, maybe they can also change for the better. And while every relationship is certainly complex and entirely different, perhaps Marriage Story will help you look at whatever divorce lies in your past with a fresh perspective.