Ben Brantley, reviewing for "The New York Times", wrote "Watching this shorthand account of four sisters growing up poor but honest during the Civil War is like speed reading Alcott's evergreen novel of 1868. You glean the most salient traits of the principal characters, events and moral lessons, but without the shading and detail that made these elements feel true to life in the book...Since the characters do not acquire full personalities, you don't feel emotionally invested in them." He wrote of Sutton Foster: "The slim and supple Ms. Foster has a lot to carry on those twitchy shoulders. If 'Little Women' does develop the following of young girls and their mothers the producers have targeted, it will be largely Ms. Foster's doing."