Uneven, excellent in parts, overly sentimental in others. Too picturesque in its visual impact and rather superficial characterisation. Laura Dern's hair was too pretty, distracting and all out of character for a mother of four working from dawn to dusk to look after her family on little money and doing good works in her spare time. Carefully artless tumbling curls on a middle-aged woman in Concord Mass in the 1850s would have been regarded with extremely raised eyebrows.
Cannot hold a candle to the BBC television series with Emily Watson as Marmee.