It’s been a while since I’ve read Little Women, but it’s my favorite book from that time period, so I was eager to see what a modern retelling in movie form would look like.

The movie does a good job of capturing the essence of the story and transferring it to a contemporary setting. Many of the scenes and storylines are very much the same. The modern-day girls personify the original characters, and honestly, the actresses actually look like how I envisioned their characters. The writing really brought the characters to life.

The production design in Little Women was beautiful! Someone spent a lot of time trying to create a fairy tale looking world in a modern setting. I loved the sets and all the little details that went into them. I also liked the wardrobe choices for capturing the girls’ personalities.

With that said, I found it hard to follow the movie at times because of the time jumps. I can’t remember if the book did that or if they just did it to condense the story for the movie, but it would often jump from when the girls are little to when they’re teens to when they’re adults and, especially with Jo’s story, there were several times when I couldn’t keep up with when she was in college and when she was 29. But, fortunately, most of the time it really didn’t matter, and I could eventually catch on to when it was supposed to be.

The only other thing I didn’t feel worked was the parents. I love Lea Thompson, but she felt too young and beautiful to be Marmy. And the dad was pretty much nonexistent except in the few scenes where they talked to him. Otherwise, they never talked about him.

Watching the movie made me want to go back and reread the book so I could spend more time with the family. If you’ve got a copy of the book, I would recommend you do a quick read through of it then head to the theaters this weekend to see Little Women on the big screen.

Disclaimer: I received a free screener link and movie tickets for this movie in exchange for an honest review. Opinions expressed are my own.