Little Women

Year of Release:  2019
Director:  Greta Gerwig
Screenplay:  Greta Gerwig, based on the novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
Starring:  Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet
Running Time:  135 minutes
Genre:  Period drama

Set in the 1860s the film follows the four March sisters:  Responsible Meg (Watson) the oldest of the four; stubborn and fiery Jo (Ronan), an aspiring writer; kind, shy and musical Beth (Scanlen) and the youngest of the four, Amy (Pugh), an aspiring painter. 

This is one of several adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel, which I have never read, and I have never seen any of the other adaptations of it, and so I cannot say how faithful or not this film is to it's source.  The film introduces us to the March sisters as adults, and moves back and forth between their childhood and their adult lives.  The film is beautifully made with some ravishing images, and impeccably played by a very strong cast.  After having made a splash with her directorial debut Lady Bird, this marks Greta Gerwig as one of the most promising new directors working today.  The film has a large cast of characters and moves between a number of different storylines and time frames, with nary a misstep.  It also successfully balances period detail with a contemporary relevance.

Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Saoirse Ronan and Eliza Scanlen in Little Women

The Ipcress File

Year of Release:  1965
Director:  Sidney J. Furie
Screenplay:  Bill Canaway and James Doran, based on the novel The IPCRESS File by Len Deighton
Starring:  Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd
Running Time:  109 minutes
Genre:  Thriller

London, 1965:  Secret agent Harry Palmer (Caine) is assigned to a section investigating a rash of bizarre resignations and disappearances of top scientists.  He soon finds himself embroiled in a murky world of espionage, betrayal and a sinister brainwashing plot.

The Ipcress File was intended to be a more downbeat and realistic alternative to the James Bind franchise and uses several crew members from the Bond films, including producer Harry Saltzman, composer John Barry and production designer Ken Adam.  While James Bond was a suave, sophisticated, public school educated, playboy, Harry Palmer is a cynical, bespectacled, working class Londoner, who lives in a bedsit, enjoys cooking and classical music and has a criminal background.  The film eschews the glamorous locations for deliberately drab London locations, and lacks the gadgets, set pieces and sex appeal, although Palmer does have a romance with fellow spy Jean Courtney (Lloyd).  It depicts the world of spying as basically mired in bureaucracy, with endless red tape, inter-departmental squabbling and office politics, which Bond would never put up with.  It is still an entertaining movie, stylishly directed by Furie, who makes good use of unconventional framing and tilted camera angles, invoking a disorientating, skewed world.  While Palmer is a more vulnerable lead then Bond, he is still handy with his fists and a gun.  Michael Caine became something of a sixties icon with this, his first lead role.  In Len Deighton's 1962 source novel, and it's sequels, the lead character (Harry Palmer in the film) is never given a name.  Like Harry Palmer in the film, Deighton was an accomplished cook and clippings of cookery articles written by him decorate Palmer's apartment, and in a scene where Palmer prepares a meal, the hands seen in close-up are actually Deighton's.     

Michael Caine is Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File