Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

Little Women

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“Little Women” is a classic novel written in 1869 by Louisa May Alcott.  There have been many movie versions made, and I am pretty sure I have seen them all.  I have read the book every few years since I was 12; so it was with a skeptical eye that I approached this latest iteration of a beloved novel.  I LOVED IT.  Greta Gerwig has told a familiar story (keeping very close to the original source material), but has made it seem fresh and new.  The story takes place during the Civil War.  The March sisters are played wonderfully by Saorise Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, and Eliza Scanlen,  They are frequently left to their own devices while Father (Bob Odenkirk) fights in the war and Marmee (Laura Dern) tends to the local poor,  The action picks up when the sisters meet Mr. Lawrence, their gruff but kind-hearted neighbor (Chris Cooper) and his handsome son, Laurie (Timothee Chalamet) – who is destined to love one sister, but marry another.  Meryl Streep is Aunt March, the rich relative who hires Jo (Saorise) to be her “companion” in return for a promised tour of Europe.  There is a an innovation, though, that some people may not like.  The story is told in flashbacks, not in the linear way of the original novel.  This may be confusing if you are not familiar with the book, but I didn’t think it took anything away from the story.  If you are familiar with the story, disregard what some people have been saying in reviews, Gerwig did not change the ending of the book so Professor Bhaer definitely makes an appearance.  All this version does is add the publishing of the book “Little Women,” which is alluded to at the end of the original.  Whether you are a newbie, or know the story backwards and forwards, you will laugh and cry with Louisa May ALcott’s delightful characters brought to new life by Greta Gerwig.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

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This movie definitely was not what I expected.  I thought it was going to be a biopic about Fred Rogers.  Instead, it is the story of journalist Tom Junod (LLoyd Vogel in the movie) and how just meeting Fred Rogers changed his outlook on life, and in the end made him a better person.  That approach might have even made this a more interesting movie.  Lloyd Vogel, who is played by Matthew Rhys, is a jaded journalist whose reputation is so tarnished by his angry approach, that he is having a hard time getting interviews.  Esquire magazine is doing a spread about American heroes and asks Vogel to write an article about TV’s Fred Rogers.  They figure it would be hard to mess this assignment up.  And Rogers is the only person who agrees to let Vogel  interview him anyway.   Vogel is sure he will uncover the dirt on this way too nice appearing guy, but he doesn’t.  There apparently isn’t any dirt, he’s the real thing!  The Fred Rogers you see on the screen is the Fred Rogers you get in real life too.  Vogel and Rogers forge an unlikely friendship in which Fred shares some of his problems in life; like his boys’ troubled teenage years trying to cope with a famous father or the fact that he was teased when he was a kid for being chubby.  Rogers helps Vogel deal with his absent, philandering father (played by Chris Cooper) and his mother’s death many years ago, which still haunts him.  This is such a sweet movie, I don’t see how anyone could leave feeling sad.  Because Mr. Rogers was such a nice man, there are all kinds of rumors about him, he hated kids, swore like a sailor, or was a Navy Seal.  Not so! This movie does an excellent job of showing you what made this man tick and how he was able to touch the individuals he met and how they touched him.  Also, Mrs. Rogers gives this movie two thumbs up and apppears in a brief cameo in a Chinese restaurant.  If you don’t want to miss her, look for pictures on the internet so you know what to expect.