From Little Women to Barbie: Scoring Greta’s Directing Work

We grade Little Women, Lady Bird, and Barbie through story, performances, visuals, sound, and theme, tracing how Greta Gerwig turns ordinary moments into emotional gut-punches and playful spectacle. We argue about casting swings, cry over silence, and unpack why identity—not perfection—wins.

• Little Women as a restrained, seasonal family epic
• casting highs and lows, with accent talk and timeline stretch
• visual portraiture, warm vs cold color logic, and the letter gaze
• silence as sound and where the score stays out of the way
• Lady Bird’s pink innocence, mother–daughter humility, and edit rhythm
• era nostalgia vs licensing limits for needle drops
• Barbie’s play-physics worldbuilding and self-aware parody
• Margot, America, and Gosling anchoring identity and belonging
• musical beats that act like monologues, especially “I’m Just Ken”
• final scores tallied and where our grades diverge

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