Elizabeth Marvel takes on the role of the 19th-century author in Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women.

Despite her international fame for having written the classic Little Women, Louisa May Alcott tells us right up front at the start of the engrossing documentary Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women that she only wrote pap for young readers because it paid well.

No pussyfooting here. This engrossing documentary takes us to the sometimes hard world that Alcott grew up in, with a ne’er-do-well dreamer father, an overworked mother and a brood of sisters that Louisa May eventually took charge of, dramatizing moments from her life with the dialogue taken from the writings of Alcott herself and the other people we see on screen.

What most people know about Louisa May Alcott is only that after some success at writing short stories and well-received novels, she wrote Little Women. It quickly became one of the most beloved books of its time in the late 19th century, was celebrated around the world and is still read today.

It may sound like a fast track up, but as co-directors Nancy Porter and Harriet Riesen show, Alcott’s writing came out of necessity to help feed her family. Many people know Alcott only from the authorized biography written shortly after her death by family friend Ednah Cheney, who worked from Alcott’s personal papers, but excised the more unsavory parts. On screen Cheney is played with authoritative voice by Jane Alexander. But Porter and Riesen compiled more references, used archival photos and drawings, shot footage at the actual locations in Boston and Concord where Alcott lived and created lively dramatizations that play like a narrative film with the dialogue spoken taken from historical records and diaries.

What came out of all this is a remarkably detailed portrait of a strong-minded woman who was far ahead of her time and far more complex than the portrait of the dainty lady that others have previously presented. Elizabeth Marvel gives a remarkably insightful performance as Louisa May, full of humor, passion, emotion and progressive thinking that makes her come alive.

As a child, her father nearly drove the family to destitution in his hare-brained scheme to create a utopian village in western Massachusetts called Fruitlands where they would live off the fruits of the land . . . until Old Man Winter came along and spoiled everything by leaving them near starvation. Louisa May’s mother, from a high-born Boston family, was reduced to scullery work to pull the family out of their financial problems; for a time they all lived in a basement apartment on the edge of a Boston slum. Her overworked mother, Abigail, grew angry at the lot of women and of her own lot in particular.

Later, through the kindness of others, the family was rescued to Concord, where Louisa was influenced by neighbors such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, who taught her botany and biology.

It gave her an intellectual curiosity that served her well as her writing flowered. Most people don’t realize that she was such a prolific writer, often turning out pulp fiction thrillers with plots that included the use of hashish and smoking opium, things no proper Victorian lady was supposed to know about. But knew them she did, from a stint at a Washington hospital during the Civil War where desperately injured soldiers underwent amputations without the benefit of ether. One heartbreaking account finds her in the hospital, writing the last letter for a dying man and comforting him in his last hours.

There was despair, too. At one point it led to an attempted suicide. But there were moments of great joy, too, and the moments in which Louisa May bubbles with happiness over the success of Little Women are presented with great buoyancy.

In one charming sequence we find the unmarried Louisa May in Paris, where she is bowled over by a young Polish man. She realizes that she’s 10 years too old for him and eventually calls off their relationship, although she uses him as a model for the character of Laurie in Little Women. The film shows the actors playing these characters in the foreground while in the background are 19th century black and white photos of famous Parisian locations.

This film, which is scheduled to be presented on PBS in the fall, is an eye opener to the past and to a famous woman you think you might have known from her writings, but clearly did not. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women fascinates, from its recollections of her difficult childhood to the strange circumstance surrounding her death.

Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women will play at 3 p.m. tomorrow at the Columbus Theatre, 270 Broadway, Providence, as part of the 12th Rhode Island International Film Festival. Tickets are $10 at the door. For a full schedule of films and events, see rifilmfest.org.

*****Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women

Starring: Elizabeth Marvel, Jane Alexander.

Rated: Not rated, contains adult themes, drug references.

mjanuson@projo.com