Little Women (2019) review

The seventh (according to Wikipedia) adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's novel should be familiar to many - it's about the lives and loves and losses of writer Jo (Saoirse Ronan), painter Amy (Florence Pugh), married but poor Meg (Emma Watson) and sickly Beth (Eliza Scanlan), the story's sacrificial lamb - except this time it's filtered through Gerwig's "feminist lens," which hammers at modern (timeless?) topics such as wage inequality and society's forcing women to get married (ironically, Alcott never did).  The ensemble is definitely impressive - Pugh and Meryl Streep are given most of the best jokes, Timothée Chalamet turns Laurie into a hipster, Louis Garrel's Friedrich is debonair - although the movie, despite every effort made to prevent it from being so, is still a smidge too stuffy and precious, like a beauty pageant contestant who can't stop looking at herself in the mirror.  It also gets a little scattered with the time frame juggling, but at least I get how she was trying to piece it together.  The smartest quip - because it stings me personally - comes courtesy of Meryl: "What a disappointment he's turned out to be.  Must be the Italian in him."