Starring Sarah Davenport, Lea Thompson, Lucas Grabeel, Melanie Stone, Ian Bohen, Bart Johnson, Elise Jones, Allie Jennings; directed by Clare Niederpruem; 112 minutes; PG-13 for some thematic elements and teen drinking.

“Little Women,” Louisa May Alcott’s tale of sisterhood and hardship, is a much beloved story often embraced by female filmmakers over the years. And a new version, written and directed by Clare Niederpruem, is being released this weekend.

This version is so far the only adaptation set in the present day, and while it seems a fun idea to update the March sisters’ trials and travails, dragging the story into the 20-teens shows how “Little Women” truly is of its era. For starters, since when have you heard of a girl selling her hair for money these days?

That’s one of the more indelible moments of the fiery Jo March, played with vim and vigor by Sarah Davenport. Watching Jo intellectually tussle with men and boss around her younger sisters, all in the name of her individuality and dedication to the creative life as a writer, you can’t help but realize that, in the harsh light of modernity, Jo truly is toxic. Or at least, this Jo is a self-aggrandizing bully who makes you wonder why anyone can stand to be around her. The sisters don’t have much of a choice, but the men do — neighbor Laurie (Lucas Grabeel) and Freddy Bhaer (Ian Bohen), editor of Jo’s misbegotten young adult fantasy novel, which she essentially forces him to read.

This “Little Women” adaptation is faithful to a fault, which results in a very strange world where this group of five present-day women depends on men for their social lives and careers — anything that gets them out of their cozy house of feminine fantasy. The film dutifully replicates story beats from the novel, and as such, brings Civil War-era gender politics to the story of five unruly and highly educated women. They might talk about cellphones and Google, but something’s distinctly retrograde about how they function in the world, needing Laurie as an escort to social events or older male editors as gatekeepers for Jo’s creative outlet.

To update the story of women in 19th century Massachusetts struggling to get by while the man of the house is at war, the whole thing needs an overhaul, taking into account the women’s movement and cultural shifts in class, labor and communities that make our world so very different from mid-19th century Massachusetts. This adaptation completely bungles the update.

Elise Jones as Amy, Melanie Stone as Meg and Allie Jennings as Beth in the movie “Little Women.”

courtesy of Pinnacle Peak Pictures