Little Women (2019) - Monologue from movie

Little Women (2019) – Amy March

INT. PARIS. ARTIST'S STUDIO. DAY. 1869.

Amy is looking through her own paintings and sketches and has a disturbed expression on her face. Laurie enters. His lot in life is always to be apologizing to one March sister or another, and he looks truly contrite.

LAURIE: Hello Amy!

AMY: (not turning around) I don't want to see you.

LAURIE: Oh, Amy I'm so sorry for how I behaved. Please? Forgive me?

AMY: (still not turning) Have you been drinking /again?

LAURIE: /Only a little, and it's 4pm, you can't be too hard on me.

AMY: Someone has to do it.

LAURIE: So when do you begin your great work of art, Raphaella?

AMY: (finally turning) Never.

He sees her face, the ashen worry traced on it.

LAURIE: What - why?

AMY: (grim)I'm a failure. Jo is in New York, being a writer, and I am a failure.

LAURIE: That's quite a statement to make at twenty.

AMY: Rome took all the vanity out of me. And Paris made me realize I'd never be a genius. I'm giving up all my foolish artistic hopes.

LAURIE: Why should you? You have so much talent and energy.

AMY: Talent isn't genius, and no amount of energy can make it so. I want to be great, or nothing. I won't be a common-place dauber, so I don't intend to try anymore.

Laurie watches her and then says conspiratorially:

LAURIE: What women are allowed into the club of geniuses anyway?

AMY: The Brontes?

LAURIE: That's it?

AMY: I think so.

LAURIE: And who always declares genius?

AMY: Well, men, I suppose.

LAURIE: They're cutting down the competition.

AMY: That's a very complicated argument to make me feel better.

LAURIE: Do you though? Feel better?

AMY: I do think that male or female, I'm a middling talent.

LAURIE: Middling talent? Then may I ask your last portrait be of me?

AMY: (laugh)

AMY: All right.

LAURIE: Now that you've given up all your foolish artistic hopes, what are you going to do with your life?

AMY: Polish up my other talents and be an ornament to society.

LAURIE: Here is where Fred Vaughn comes in, I suppose.

AMY: Don't make /fun!

LAURIE: (laughing) /I'm not!

LAURIE: You are not engaged, I hope?

AMY: No…

LAURIE: But you will be, if he goes down properly on one knee?

AMY: Most likely, yes.

AMY: He's rich, richer than you, even.

LAURIE: I understand queens of society can't get on without money. But it does sound odd coming from one of your mother's girls.

AMY: I've always known that I would marry rich. Why should I be ashamed of that?

LAURIE: There is nothing to be ashamed of, as long as you love him.

AMY: Well, I believe we have some power over who we love, it isn't something that just happens to a person.

LAURIE: I think the poets might disagree.

AMY: Well. I'm not a poet, I'm just a woman. And as a woman I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family.

AMY (CONT'D): Even if I had my own money, which I don't, it would belong to my husband the minute we were married. If we had children they would belong to him not me. They would be his property. So don't sit there and tell me that marriage isn't an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for me.

The sound of a carriage approaching, and Amy gives a little start:

AMY: That will be Fred now. (to Laurie)

AMY: How do I look? Do I look all right?

Laurie looks at her, really looks at her for the first time.

LAURIE: You look beautiful. You are... beautiful.

She suddenly blushes, but smiles in thanks. And then runs off to greet Fred. From the top of the staircase, Laurie looks at her and Fred embrace, not sure of what he's feeling.

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