The one character Greta Gerwig identifies with the most
With only three solo movies under her belt, Greta Gerwig has changed cinema forever. Her first outing, 2017’s Lady Bird, is a beautiful celebration of youthful waywardness, female relationships, and the early 2000s. Then came an adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, a wonderfully personal interpretation of the classic novel with masterful performances by Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, and Timothée Chalamet. Finally, there was Barbie. That’s all there is to say, really; it made a billion dollars, captured the entire world’s imagination, and earned Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination for singing with his shirt off.
Apart from the obvious fact that they’re all fronted by female characters, Gerwig’s films are linked by their relatability. The titular Lady Bird is a mess of conflicting emotions, transporting many audience members back to their own awkward teenage years. Each of the March sisters in Little Women has their own problems, all of which are strangely relevant in a modern setting. Even Margot Robbie’s Barbie, a character designed to be perfect, suffers from crippling anxiety.
This is something Gerwig touched on during an interview with Screen Daily ahead of the release of Little Women in 2019. She identified Josephine ‘Jo’ March, Ronan’s character and the most prominent sister in the story, as the one she saw the most of herself in. “Because I grew up loving Jo so much,” she said. “I don’t know if I was like Jo, and that’s why I loved her, or I loved her and so I became like her. But who I am, and who Jo March is, are so linked, even though the book was written 150 years ago, and even though I didn’t grow up in Massachusetts as one of four sisters, it feels like I did, it feels so much a part of who I am.”
Jo, the most artistic and independent of the four March sisters, is torn between her many responsibilities. Her dream is to become an accomplished writer, but between her family duties, her sister Beth’s illness, and her growing romance with neighbour Laurie (Chalamet), the path to success isn’t as clear as she would’ve liked.
“The young woman trying to sell a story and figuring how much she needs to change it to be economically viable could have been me, yesterday, talking to a studio head,” Gerwig revealed. “It’s something I understand and is embedded in the fabric of who I am. And, as I’ve gotten older, it’s become more relevant to who I am as a filmmaker.”
Much like her literary idol, Gerwig had to fight hard to have her voice heard, admitting she “was not on anybody’s list to direct this film.” However, her passion for the source material meant that she was never going to back down. “I had re-read it in my 30s and felt it was so modern and so urgent and so unexplored in terms of how much it was relevant to today,” she explained. “I had this pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do with it, so I fought my way into that room and, luckily, they hired me to write it, and then, ultimately, said I could direct it. I was hell-bent on it, because I felt there was something that was so deeply moving, but also revolutionary.”
Gerwig’s hard work paid off, as Little Women was a critical and commercial smash. It made over $200million on a $40m budget and was nominated for six Oscars, including the director’s second ‘Best Picture’ nomination in a row.
