I rewatched it about a month ago for the first time since it was in theaters and I loved it; it held up. I had not been able to appreciate it properly in 1994, when I was taken to see it by some friends and their mother and enjoyed it but spent too much of the runtime noticing the absence of Katharine Hepburn. I actually think it does a really good job of showing Jo and Laurie as the kind of closely bonded friends who would not make a good couple, even if the connection is strong enough that they keep feeling the near-miss for a while. (What the hell happened to Christian Bale's sense of humor? He's so young and gangly and funny! Did he just misplace his goofiness somewhere in the Batcave?) I like the strengthing of Bhaer's political aspects as well as his acknowledgement of the space Jo needs for her art, whatever it is and whether or not he likes it; this film was my introduction to Gabriel Byrne and I assumed he was German for years, because I recognized his accent from the father of my best friend. And I suspect this film was my introduction to Winona Ryder as well and she's wonderful. Her Jo doesn't feel like an avatar of a particular kind of girl. She feels like herself.
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Date: 2018-07-19 07:17 pm (UTC)I rewatched it about a month ago for the first time since it was in theaters and I loved it; it held up. I had not been able to appreciate it properly in 1994, when I was taken to see it by some friends and their mother and enjoyed it but spent too much of the runtime noticing the absence of Katharine Hepburn. I actually think it does a really good job of showing Jo and Laurie as the kind of closely bonded friends who would not make a good couple, even if the connection is strong enough that they keep feeling the near-miss for a while. (What the hell happened to Christian Bale's sense of humor? He's so young and gangly and funny! Did he just misplace his goofiness somewhere in the Batcave?) I like the strengthing of Bhaer's political aspects as well as his acknowledgement of the space Jo needs for her art, whatever it is and whether or not he likes it; this film was my introduction to Gabriel Byrne and I assumed he was German for years, because I recognized his accent from the father of my best friend. And I suspect this film was my introduction to Winona Ryder as well and she's wonderful. Her Jo doesn't feel like an avatar of a particular kind of girl. She feels like herself.