Little Women

Last night we went to watch the new Little Women, which is excellent. Aesthetically beautiful, poignant, funny. The cinema was full. One of those communal experiences easily dismissed as corny. All of us laughed at once; everybody sobbed together. In Little Women the characters prioritise kindness keenly and encounter in forgiveness the only way to find some peace in themselves. ‘Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured,’ said Mark Twain, and this story is a balsam, a lesson on well-being and self-care. 

Still, the film is being partially ignored without nominations for the big awards. Having watched three of the five candidates for the Bafta Best Director gives me a good idea of what’s going on. The Irishman, Joker and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood are eminently masculine, and in the three of them, the main characters actively prefer meanness over any goodness. I find Tarantino’s and Philip’s irritatingly shallow, whereas Scorsese’s is an outstanding wrap-up of a career that explored the roots of toxic masculinity. The conclusion is crystal clear, the price of being cruel with those around you is utter loneliness at the end of one’s life.

‘Find out what makes your kinder, what opens you up, and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you — and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.’ George Saunders, 2013 speech at Syracuse University.