After the runaway success of her directorial debut Lady Bird in 2017, fans have been eagerly awaiting Greta Gerwig’s next move as a director. So when it was announced last year that she was set to adapt classic novel Little Women for the big screen, people were rightly excited. Now, Gillian Armstrong – director of the much-loved 1994 adaptation – has also given Gerwig her approval, tweeting her praise yesterday.
“Plucked up courage and saw the new Little Women. And loved it. Very different,” the filmmaker wrote. “Brave new structure. Fantastic cast. And yes the message sadly needs to be stronger for this generation. Hopefully now men will see and vote #gretaforoscar.”
Armstrong’s version of Little Women was not only a critical success – it was nominated for three Oscars – but a box-office success as well. The film included a memorable performance from Winona Ryder, and featured a young Kirsten Dunst as Amy March. For Gerwig’s Little Women, she has assembled an all star cast, reuniting Lady Bird actors Saoirse Ronan and Timothée Chalamet, as well as adding more big names, including Emma Watson, Meryl Streep, and Laura Dern.
In a recent cover story for Dazed, Ronan and Dern went in conversation to discuss the magic of Little Women, and the fun they had filming. “(Saoirse) and I doing the scene in the attic will forever be one of my top memories of my life as an actor,” Dern said. While Ronan revealed the connection she had to Jo prior to being cast in Gerwig’s adaptation. “There’s no one else I understand as fully as I did Jo,” she explained. “She needed to be a tornado, this bloody twister coming into the room and messing everything up a bit.”
With Armstrong’s seal of approval, a host of rave reviews already in the bag, and a stellar cast, Gerwig’s version of Little Women is bound to emulate the success of its 1994 namesake and become an instant classic.
Little Women hits UK cinemas on on December 26