1. Beth dying is one of the few things that makes me cry, every single time; although, ashamedly, only in the movie version, not so much in the book.

2. If Jo had married Laurie my world would be a brighter place today. Of this, I have no doubt.

3. Of the four sisters in the film version, only Meg failed to become a major film star (Claire, Winona, and Kirsten were already starlets of varying intensity). Amy, however, was the only sister who had two actresses portray her, one for her childhood and one for her adulthood. Samantha Mathis (the adult Amy) remains a relatively minor actress compared to her childhood version (Dunst). Both of the actresses are distinctive enough that there’s no possible way to imagine them being evolving states of one another; this is a major flaw in the movie.

4. Another major flaw was having John Brooke, with his dark brown eyes and clean-cut appearance, suitable for the husband of the oldest sister, portrayed by Eric Stoltz, as a ginger-haired precursor to the beatniks. I hated this beyond words as a child.

5. Six years after Little Women, Samantha Mathis and Christian Bale would play out one of literature’s most psychotically vapid and indulgently dysfunctional relationships. Sometimes I pretend that Amy and Laurie would have become Courtney and Patrick. Their wealthy, self-satisfied, expatriate artist life seems vaguely appropriate.

6. I wish more people would write terrible R-rated fanfiction for this film.