The opening sequence of Greta Gerwig’s 2019 “Little Women” immediately establishes the story’s core tension by jumping between past and present, beginning with adult Jo March in a publishing house office, then cutting to her younger self sitting in a theater during the Civil War era. This nonlinear approach—showing Jo as a struggling writer before showing how she became one—sets the emotional stakes within seconds. The opening doesn’t follow the conventional chronological structure of Louisa May Alcott’s novel; instead, it frames the entire story as a flashback prompted by Jo’s desperate attempt to get her manuscript published.
This narrative choice fundamentally reshapes how audiences experience the March sisters’ journey. Rather than opening with the famous poverty scene or the girls on Christmas morning, Gerwig begins with ambition and disappointment, establishing that Jo’s literary dreams are the through-line of the film. The technical execution—desaturated colors in the “present” scenes contrasting with warmer tones in the flashback—creates visual language that immediately signals time shifts without exposition.
Table of Contents
- How Does the Opening Frame Jo’s Narrative Arc?
- The Visual Language of Time and Social Class
- The Performance and Physical Language of the March Sisters
- How the Opening Establishes Narrative Reliability and Memory
- The Sound Design and Musical Choices
- The Role of Jo’s Manuscript and Physical Objects
- Thematic Echoes Between the Opening’s Two Time Periods
How Does the Opening Frame Jo’s Narrative Arc?
The opening sequence presents Jo not as a girl finding her voice, but as a woman fighting to keep her voice heard. The publishing house scene shows her in contemporary clothing, entering an office where a male editor dismisses her work with patronizing disinterest. This bookends Jo’s journey in reverse: we see her destination before understanding how she got there. The jump to the theater scene introduces the central conflict—the tension between Jo’s artistic integrity and the commercial pressures that will define her path forward.
The theatrical setting itself carries weight. The stage performance Jo watches provides a mirror for her future as a writer—she’s observing storytelling, absorbing technique, understanding that entertainment and art are intertwined. This moment primes the audience to understand that Jo isn’t naively pursuing a lofty ideal; she’s already engaged with the mechanics of how stories reach audiences and influence them. The period costumes, the gaslit theater, the earnest faces around her all communicate that this is a girl who grasps the power of narrative.
The Visual Language of Time and Social Class
cinematographer Yorick Le Saux uses desaturated color grading for the “present day” scenes and richer, warmer tones for the flashback sequences. This inversion of typical flashback grammar—usually flashbacks are rendered in sepia or faded tones—creates disorientation that mirrors Jo’s experience of looking back. The cold, institutional lighting of the publishing house makes the past appear more vibrant and alive, suggesting that Jo’s authentic self exists in memory, not in the present corporate reality she’s navigating. The opening also establishes class through spatial framing. The publishing house is all sharp lines, high ceilings, and professional distance.
The theater where young Jo sits is cramped, communal, democratic. This visual contrast encodes the film’s central argument about art and commerce without a single line of dialogue. The warning embedded here: audiences trained by mainstream cinema to accept linear chronology may initially feel confused by the non-sequential opening. This isn’t a flaw—it’s precisely the point. Gerwig wants viewers to feel Jo’s disorientation as a writer trying to reclaim agency over her own story.
The Performance and Physical Language of the March Sisters
The opening lacks the full ensemble of the March sisters; instead, it isolates Jo in both time periods. Adult Jo sits alone in the publishing office; young Jo sits among strangers in the theater. This visual isolation reinforces that Jo’s story is distinct from her sisters’ stories, though they’re all present in the film. The child actor Eliza Scanlen (who plays young Jo) and Saoirse Ronan (who plays adult Jo) mirror each other’s posture and intensity, establishing physical continuity across time. Young Jo leans forward, engaged; adult Jo sits rigid, armor-plated.
The absence of the other sisters in the opening creates expectation. Viewers familiar with “Little Women” expect the tight bond between the four sisters to ground the story. The opening’s focus on Jo alone suggests something different will unfold. When the narrative finally introduces Meg, Beth, and Amy in the flashback, their arrival feels like entering Jo’s memory selectively. This structure has a specific effect on plot interpretation: scenes with all four sisters become moments Jo is choosing to emphasize in her reflection, not moments of equal narrative weight.
How the Opening Establishes Narrative Reliability and Memory
Gerwig’s choice to begin with Jo as the narrating consciousness means every subsequent scene is filtered through her perspective and memory. This is more restrictive than it initially appears. When we see interactions between other characters that Jo didn’t witness or couldn’t have heard about, the film creates a subtle unreliability. Did Jo imagine this scene? Did she hear it secondhand? The opening’s formal structure—beginning with Jo’s present frustration—justifies why certain memories appear vivid while others fade or shift. A specific limitation of this approach: scenes involving only other characters (Meg with Sallie, Beth with Mr.
Laurence, Amy’s boarding school interactions) exist in a gray zone where the audience questions their accuracy. This isn’t a flaw in the screenplay; it’s an intentional effect. Compare this to the 1994 version directed by Gillian Armstrong, which uses straightforward chronology and omniscient framing. The 2019 opening’s complexity trades some clarity for psychological depth. Viewers who prefer transparent storytelling may find the nonlinear structure unnecessarily complicated; those interested in how memory reshapes narrative will find it essential.
The Sound Design and Musical Choices
Alexandre Desplat’s score enters subtly during the opening, but the most striking sound choice is silence. The publishing house scenes rely on diegetic sound—footsteps, door closes, the quiet rustle of manuscript pages. When the cut takes us to the theater, music swells. This sonic contrast reinforces the visual temperature shift. The theater is alive with sound; the publishing house is dead.
The warning: first-time viewers may not consciously register these aural choices, but they accumulate psychological weight. The quiet dread of the publishing house scene conditions audiences to feel Jo’s desperation before the narrative explains it. This opening proves that film language operates through sensory channels audiences don’t always consciously track. The lack of dialogue in the first two minutes—unusual for contemporary cinema—forces viewers to interpret through image and sound alone. This creates active watching rather than passive consumption.
The Role of Jo’s Manuscript and Physical Objects
The opening places enormous emphasis on Jo’s manuscript. We see the pages, the worn edges, the physical artifact of her work. This is not abstract ambition; it’s a tangible object that carries Jo’s hopes. The editor’s dismissal of these pages becomes a rejection of Jo’s material reality, not just her ideas. This focus on the manuscript as object carries through the entire film—it’s not just what Jo writes, but the physical form of her writing that matters.
The specific detail: the manuscript pages appear hand-written and revised, showing strike-throughs and annotations. This messiness communicates authentic labor. Unlike polished, professional manuscripts, Jo’s work shows the traces of her process. The editor handles these pages with indifference, never acknowledging the effort embedded in them. This detail illuminates the film’s repeated theme about the invisibility of women’s work.
Thematic Echoes Between the Opening’s Two Time Periods
The opening establishes a thematic mirror between Jo as a rejected writer and Jo as a girl dreaming of becoming a writer. In both moments, Jo is witnessing or creating narrative—either trying to get her own story published or absorbing stories from the stage. The through-line isn’t success; it’s persistence. Young Jo watches the play with complete absorption; adult Jo enters the publishing house with the same determination, even knowing rejection is likely.
The architectural difference between the two spaces reinforces this. The theater is designed for collective experience, with strangers packed together sharing one story. The publishing house is designed for individual transactions, compartmentalized and isolating. This opening suggests that Jo’s journey from one space to the other involves learning how stories become commodities, and how artists must navigate that transformation without losing the spark that made them storytellers in the first place.
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