My moaning for this Monday is huge. I’m moving. Enough said, right? I’ve lived in my house for twenty-one years this May. It’s the only home my youngest daughter has ever known and the only home my son remembers-so it’s bittersweet. My Scot says we need to downsize. I’m ready. Maybe. He wants to live on a lake. I’m a cement pond sort of gal. He wants to fish. I’m scared of snakes, but I’m willing to leave my beloved house behind for a promise of sipping coffee with him on the back deck while watching the sunrise each morning.
Below is my favorite pic of our family home as we pack up the memories and say good-bye. I’ll post pictures of the new house once we begin the remodel. Yes, I said it remodel. Lord, help me. And just because I live in Texas doesn’t mean I can whip a house into shape like Chip and Joanna Gains. I know in my journey ahead there will be tears, there will be arguments, there will be stiff and sore backs, but the smell of coffee on an early summer morning with my guy will make it all worthwhile.
On to the movie. My choice this month was Little Women, the film adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s novel written in 1868. Little Women was one of the first novels I read as a young girl, and I adored it. In fact, I wanted to be Jo when I grew up. My sister jokes I always planned on being the rich aunt who stopped by for rare visits to my sister and her five children. Funny how things turned out differently than planned, and I think they turned out different than Alcott herself planned for Jo March.
The movie follows the March sisters as they grow up in Civil War-era New England. The film doesn’t follow the linear style like in the Alcott novel but contains flashbacks to the girl’s younger days. I like the way filmmaker Greta Gerwig keeps the audience engaged while learning the story of the four girls.
The casting for this movie was spot on. Emma Watson plays the kind and patient, Meg. I loved her in Harry Potter, and I love her in this one as well. Saoirse Ronan is the perfect smart and fierce Jo, Florence Pugh gives the new take on the spoiled Amy an empathetic new life, and as Beth, Eliza Scanlen will grab your heart. Rounding out the cast is Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.
Streep (Also one of my fav’s) does a fantastic job channeling Downton Abby’s Violet Crawley in her deliciously wicked portrayal of the wealthy Aunt March.
I cringed at the scene where Jo lays her handwritten manuscript page by page across the floor in her room. I honestly don’t know if I could write without a computer, MS Word, thesaurus, and dictionary. Oh, how spoiled I am and how I admire those that have come before me.
We get to see Jo in New York trying to sell her manuscript, Amy in Paris learning to paint, and Meg struggling with her choice of love over money. The scenery is breathtaking, and I added skating on a frozen pond among snow-covered trees to my bucket list.
Gerwig does a fantastic job bringing the feminist undertones of the novel to the forefront and allowing the audience to understand the challenges of domestic life. I highly recommend you see this movie with your mother, daughter, daughter-in-law. I did, and it was a truly heartwarming experience.
