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Parents' Guide to

Little Big Women

By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 13+

Poignant, complex family drama has mature themes.

Movie NR 2020 123 minutes
Little Big Women Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

  • Little Big Women Movie: Scene 1
  • Little Big Women Movie: Scene 2
  • Little Big Women Movie: Scene 3

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What's the Story?

In LITTLE BIG WOMEN, Lin Shoying (Chen Shu-Fang) is the domineering family matriarch, slowly giving up the famed restaurant she created to her youngest daughter JiaJia (Ke-Fang Sun) while still exerting the control she can. On the day of her 70th birthday celebration, resentments abound between her and her other two grown daughters, the spirited and restless dancer Ching (Ying-Xuan Hsieh), and over-serious doctor Yu (Vivian Hsu). Shoying wishes Yu wouldn't send her darling granddaughter Clementine (Chen Yan-Fei) to the United States to study, and she wishes Ching, recently recovered from cancer, would settle down. But much remains unspoken until Bochang (Weber Yang), the girls' father, dies on Shoying's birthday in a nearby hospital after decades of absence. Shoying had never granted a divorce to the philandering, gambling charmer and now she must watch her daughters express their love and grief for the man who ruined her life. Emotions run high as Shoying airs her justified grievances but also sees her own errors and apologizes.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: Not yet rated
Kids say: Not yet rated

The exoticism of a foreign culture mixed with the ordinariness and universality of the characters' worries and longings combine to make this a powerful and touching drama. Little Big Women (don't be distracted by the weak title) is to some degree a story about women, but as it shows us youth and old age, financial struggles and comfort, flashbacks and the present, and spans three generations of bright and capable women, patterns emerge that apply to all of our lives. The aging mother, still furious decades later at the husband who abandoned her, can't believe her daughters could be sad when that same irresponsible father dies, especially after she worked so hard to raise those girls on her own. But writer-director Joseph Chen-Chieh Hsu gives us a woman who isn't beyond performing an act of gracious acceptance. The movie embraces the way we can long for what we lost, but also acknowledge affection for the mistakes we made, and find forgiveness for others and ourselves.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the way that every member of the family had her own reasons for being angry and sad. What are some of the reasons that Shoying resented her husband after he left her to care for their three young kids?

  • How does the movie portray the father who left? Does he seem like a bad man or a decent guy?

  • What does the movie say about how it's possible to look at the same person from different points of view?

Movie Details

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