film criticism by maryann johanson | celebrating 25 years: 1997–2022
This modern update of the beloved classic novel is embarrassingly misjudged, so earnest and on-the-nose a transfer to today that the March sisters feel not like modern girls but odd, out-of-step transplants from another time.
The nicest, kindest critique of toxic masculinity imaginable. The makeovers aren’t only about new clothes and a haircut: they’re about men waking up to a new sense of self, and a new participation in their own lives.
Precious, fatuous, Nancy Meyers–lite rom-com about a privileged rich white lady with no real problems who can’t help but mom her much-younger new boyfriend. Barf.
A nice movie about real problems people face in real life, and it deals with them in as sidelong a way as it possibly can, avoiding all strong emotion.
This bunch of found footage should have stayed lost.
It seems the problems of rich white folk do amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world…
Achingly lovely, so full of bittersweet melancholy and yet so fixedly hopeful…
