whimsyful

Little Women is a 12 episode 2022 Korean drama very loosely inspired by Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel of the same name. I became interested in this show after learning it was written by Jung Seo-kyung (The Handmaiden, Decision to Leave, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance) and grew even more interested when it premiered to glowing reviews and some absolutely stunning screenshots (the art director is Ryu Seong-hee, another frequent Park Chan-wook collaborator, which explains why this series looks so gorgeous).

The story is a modern Gothic noir thriller take on Alcott’s novel, with additional influences from fairy tales and Parasite. Our heroines are the Oh sisters, three young women living in a rooftop apartment in poverty:

• Oh In-joo is this show’s Meg March, a thirty year old divorcee who works as a bookkeeper. Pretty, naive, and trusting, In-joo’s main goal in life is to provide for her two younger sisters in lieu of their useless parents. When her coworker and close friend Jin Hwa-young commits suicide under suspicious circumstances and leaves In-joo a boatload of extremely illegally acquired money, she becomes drawn into the secret behind her friend’s death—leading her to the wealthy and powerful Park family, the money launderer Choi Do-il who has an agenda of his own, and the seductive possibility of finally living a comfortable life.
• Oh In-kyung is Jo March, a tenacious investigative journalist with an alcohol problem. When she begins to suspect mayoral candidate Park Jae-sang of being behind multiple deaths, she has no idea how deep the conspiracy runs or how intimately her family will become entangled.
• Oh In-hye is Amy March, a teenager and very talented artist. A lifetime of watching her two older sisters work themselves to the bone to try and provide for her has left In-hye jaded and embittered and desperate to break free. When her wealthy best friend Hyo-rin’s parents (Park Jae-sang and his wife Won Sang-ah) offer to take her under their wing it seems like a blessing—why not take the chance to live a better life for herself and free her sisters from the millstone around their necks, if all it costs is her pride and sucking up to some rich people? Unfortunately, the Park family turns how to have far more skeletons in the closet than she anticipated.

More thoughts (mild spoilers) under the cut:

• This show is so incredibly Gothic. There is a beautiful mansion with not one, not two, but THREE hidden rooms with deadly secrets: a secret basement full of hallucinogenic Murder Orchids, a secret attic with a Murder Dollhouse, and a third secret room where multiple women get trapped Jane Eyre style.
• Less surprisingly, it is incredibly female-centric. I think I can count the number of scenes that pass the Reverse Bechdel Test on one hand, and almost every male character is there in service to a female character’s storyline and development.
• This also has perhaps the most original take on how to resolve the Jo/Laurie/Amy triangle that I’ve ever seen in a Little Women adaptation: split Laurie’s character into two. Laurie’s most obvious counterpart is Ha Jong-ho, In-kyung’s wealthy childhood friend who’s been in love with her forever and who basically follows her around like a puppy and is the Supportive Boyfriend/Girl Friday during her investigations. But some other parts of Laurie—the artistic inclinations, the lonely rich kid who feels trapped in his giant empty house—also show up in Hyo-rin, whose relationship with In-hye is incredibly sapphic. Each of them is shown to be the most important person to each other! Neither of them ever has a scene with a boy their age! At one point the show straight up replicates The Handmaiden’s “running away on a boat together” scene with the two of them!
• Nor does In-hye get all the sapphic subtext. Aside from having a lot of excellent charged moments with the equally sexy and sketchy homme fatale Do-il, In-joo also has great homoerotic chemistry with both Won Sang-ah and most especially Jin Hwa-young. (rot13 spoilers: Ujn-lbhat yrnirf ure friragl ovyyvba jba naq qevirf ure pne vagb na bapbzvat gehpx gb fnir Va-wbb! Va-wbb ercrngrqyl qvgpurf Qb-vy gb ybbx sbe/fnir Ujn-lbhat! Gurl unir zngpuvat npvq oheaf ba gurve unaqf ol gur raq!) I did not expect In-kyung/Jo to be the straightest sister in a Little Women adaptation, but here we are.
• We learn about a few episodes in that there was a fourth sister: In-seon, the Beth March analogue who died of illness before the start of the story because the Ohs were too poor to pay for her medical treatment. It’s perhaps the biggest difference between the book and the show: the Marches were overall accepting, even ennobled by their poverty, whereas all it does to the Ohs is grind them down and leave them to be exploited. The anti-capitalist themes does get rather messy by the final episode, but overall I’m glad the show went for a more updated take on the original concept.
• I’ve already said this once but it bears repeating: this show is gorgeous to watch. Everything from the lush color palettes to the outfits to the wonderfully composed set design is a visual feast for the eyes.

The plotting does get a little too convoluted and unbelievable towards the very end (court trials do not work that way!), the episodes really don’t need to be more than an hour long, and how the Vietnam War is used in the backstory is…not great, but overall I found this show an utter delight to watch. Strongly recommended if you’re in the mood for a beautifully shot female-centric Gothic crime thriller.