Deborah Altieri

The acting was good and for the most part dialogue stuck to the book. But I felt it was cast incorrectly. Laurie although acted well seemed too young for the part. There did not seem to be any chemistry between him or Amy for sure. It would have been beneficial to use a child for Amy at the start and an adult when she had grown-up. This was done in the 1994 version and made the age differences easier to understand. The girls all looked about the same age. Amy I suppose is suppose to be the youngest as she is in the book and several of the other versions (but not 1943 version) since she goes to school but it was hard to tell if she was the youngest or Beth was. I also did not understand why the director chose to do the movie starting as adults and flashing back and forth until I read her explanation. I found it confusing to know exactly where we were at and believe a younger audience of children will not piece it together without explanation. When Beth was ill I could only keep track of which time we were seeing by the length of Jo’s hair in the scene. It took me a minute to understand why the first draft of Jo’s book does not allow her heroine to be engaged at the end of the book. I understand she was standing her ground against the publisher and ultimately gave in to the publishers idea. Whatever the director’s point in this, it was lost by me. It made uncertain if Jo accepted the professor or not. Enjoyable and worth seeing but in comparing not the best version in my opinion even with trying to spin a modern twist at the end.