Portraits of little women on fire

I've seen both Portrait of a Lady Fire and Little Women in the past week, the latter just last night, and I couldn't help but notice some funny similarities.

Some of them are just based on the period of time in which they occur, which is separated by eight decades or so, but still reflects some of the same overriding principles for gender roles in society.

Some of them, though, are just weird.

In reverse order of their weirdness:

1) Both films feature women being encouraged to marry for the purposes of their own upward mobility, and rebelling against that.

2) Both films feature a woman who is working as, or aspires to be, a painter.

Those ones are not that weird. But:

3) Both films feature a woman whose dress catches on fire. It happens to Heloise in Portrait and it happens to Jo in Women. That's not something I've seen in a movie in, I don't know, a long time, and I saw it twice in the same week. And in both instances, the woman whose dress is on fire does not at first notice it, having to be alerted to the fact by other characters.

And the weirdest one:

4) When I was watching Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I observed that the actress Noemie Merlant bears a striking resemblance to Emma Watson -- who is in Little Women. If only Watson also played the painter in Women, it would be even weirder, but alas, that role goes to Florence Pugh.

Hey, just because it's a new decade doesn't mean I don't still love pointing out coincidences.

Do both acclaimed films also appear in my top ten for the year?

You'll have to wait another week to find out.