As you can likely guess, this movie is a loose adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. This version brings the March sisters to present day New England. As a huge fan of the original movie adaptation, I was pretty excited to watch this version. Spoiler alert: this movie is terrible.
The movie opens on the March Family Orchard House. Mom is going through the house with a realtor, and it quickly becomes obvious that the house is in incredible disrepair. The condescending real estate agent begins telling her what needs to be done in order for the house to sell. As they are discussing the shamble of a house, Beth walks in to let the snooty real estate agent know the house isn't for sale. She then quickly texts her three sisters to gather at the house to stop this woman from selling the house. I understand not wanting your parents to sell the house you grew up in, but come on. The sisters are all full grown women, and it's not up to them wether or not the house gets sold. They aren't making any kind of contribution to the upkeep, and Mom (I don't think we ever learn her name) clearly can't keep up on the repairs of such a huge house. I immediately didn't like any of the sisters.
After gathering in the crumbling attic where Mom and the realtor are, they scare the realtor off. For now. The five women start discussing the house, and Mom says she'll hold of on selling until she gets back from Afghanistan. She's flying out there to pick up her injured husband, who was there as a war reporter. She then announces she won't be back until after Christmas. Instead of being concerned for the welfare of their father, the women, (yes women. They aren't little. Amy likes to remind everyone she's not a child. She's 20 years old!) all begin complaining that Mom won't be there for Christmas. They are all seriously so entitled it's hard to find any redeeming qualities in any of the four sisters.
Nothing more is ever mentioned of Afghanistan or their parents, really. After Mom leaves, the girls decided they are going to pool their resources to fix up the house so their parents will have to keep it. I don't know why they think this will save the house from being sold. Mom still can't keep up with the huge house, and they still have no plans of contributing after renovations.
Overall, the whole movie is very disjointed. It's pretty hard to fit the entire story of Little Women into an hour and half, but this one was just hard to follow. The March's handsome neighbor, Teddy appears several times without a shirt on, I'm assuming to distract us from the lack of character development. There's also some very dramatic fake piano playing from Teddy's uncle that lends a sense of family togetherness.
Some of the worst attempts to stay true to the original story include the feud between Jo and Amy. Jo is just downright awful to Amy. Yes, Amy is the youngest and spoiled, but give her a break. She's only 20. There's also a love triangle between Jo, Teddy, and Jo's editor, Marcus. Although, I supposed it's more of a love square because Amy throws her hat into that mess, too.
Meg and Beth seem to be more of background characters. Meg starts out the movie dating Douche Bag Dan, as Jo so lovingly calls him, and quickly moves onto John. I have no idea where he came from, but he hangs out with Teddy a lot.
As can be expected there are some huge holes, but the movie does leave you guessing as to who will end up with whom. If you've seen the original, there aren't any real surprises there. Although on a positive note, Beth doesn't die in this version.
On our rom-com scale I rate this a 2/10. The acting isn't terrible, but the script just leaves a lot to be desired. That rating would translate to a -8 in real world movies, so I can't really recommend too highly that anyone watch it.
The March Sisters at Christmas is available for streaming on Hallmark Movies Now, or for rent for $0.99 on Amazon.com.
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