I’ve never read Little Women, nor seen any of the numerous prior adaptions, and this proved to be a blessing, allowing me to engage with the film’s content unplagued by comparisons, evaluating it strictly on its own terms. I went in cold and came out so warm because of it. Two years after her strikingly assured solo debut, Lady Bird, writer/director Greta Gerwig adapts a beloved novel with the same levels of heartfelt humanism, smooth tonal balance and lyrical structuring that made…