This is such a beguiling, generous film from Gerwig. There is a lot of love in it.

In an era in which sentimentality is a seasoning that filmmakers either shun entirely or employ with too heavy a hand, Gerwig crafts a work about love and family and devotion and empathy that is moving without being manipulative. This is a Little Women for the ages.

Little Women is the best kind of Hollywood film: thoughtful yet escapist, sophisticated yet accessible, expertly crafted and deeply felt. The performances are all top notch—Ronan and Pugh, especially, breathe new life into their characters. Gerwig’s direction is also first rate.

Gerwig’s adaptation looks at the eponymous little women through ambitious storytelling techniques that modernize the book’s timeless story in unexpected ways.

If Gerwig’s woke Women-hood verges on anachronism, though, it also feels fully loyal to the spirit of Alcott, a woman always well ahead of her time. And like a sort of balm too, for an era when the novel’s long-held values — courage, kindness, strength in vulnerability — still feel a lot further away than they should.