{"id":2340,"date":"2022-07-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-07-21T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2340"},"modified":"2022-07-21T14:44:55","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T04:44:55","slug":"movie-review-where-the-crawdads-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/batrock.net\/?p=2340","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: Where the Crawdads Sing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With over 12 million copies sold, Where The Crawdads Sing\u00a0<\/em>is considered one of the best-selling novels of all time, written by a naturalist who is wanted for questioning in Zambia for her connection to the murder of an elephant poacher. One of the breakout titles of Reese Witherspoon\u2019s Hello Sunshine Book Club,\u00a0Where The Crawdads Sing\u00a0<\/em>is a borderline racist mid-twentieth century adventure that can be read in the space of one day. As a film it\u2019s come out as more Nicholas Sparks than its own movie, and cut-rate Nicholas Sparks at that, no matter how good the cast or scenery may be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

In 1969, local pariah Kya \u201cThe Marsh Girl\u201d Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones, TV\u2019s Under the Banner of Heaven<\/em>) is arrested for the murder of the local star quarterback (Harris Dickinson, The King\u2019s Man<\/em>) in the North Carolinian town of Barkley Cove. Prodded by her defence attorney (David Strathairn, Nightmare Alley<\/em>), Kya tells of her isolated life out in the marshes, spurned by society with the exception of biologist Tate (Taylor John Smith, Backlight<\/em>) and kindly store owners Jumpin\u2019 (Sterling Macer Jr., Double Down<\/em>) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt, TV\u2019s Snowfall<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the Crawdads Sing<\/em> is doomed almost from the start, with its thoroughly unnecessary framing device. \u201cI had a family, once,\u201d Kya begins. \u201cThey used to call me Kya.\u201d Everything that comes after is tinged with this embarrassing folksiness that never once flirts with sincerity or earnestness. The film\u2019s reliance on Edgar-Jones\u2019 narration is such that it has a breaking point: surely it\u2019s not in the client\u2019s best interests to disclose all <\/em>of this information to her legal representative?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a film that is part courtroom drama, any time that the legal process looms Where the Crawdads Sing <\/em>grinds to a halt. The crime as it is described is nebulous at best, and for such a literal film it takes no advantage of the opportunities to recreate hypothetical crimes that the visual format would allow. Lucy Alibar (Troop Zero<\/em>) provides a shorthand of the defence and the most circumstantial basis for pressing charges in the first place. It\u2019s not for no reason that the criminal trial is just something that happens in the book \u2013 a third act development to bring the reader to the book\u2019s conclusion \u2013 so structuring the entire film around it is a misstep that permeates Where the Crawdads Sing <\/em>to its core and allows no room to breathe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The one area that Where the Crawdads Sing <\/em>overcomes its material is in the presentation of Jumpin\u2019 and Mabel who on the page read as two of the most retrograde servile African-American caricatures in recent literature. Here they show some agency and speak sentences that aren\u2019t pure phonetic invention, but <\/em>they only exist to boost Kya, an indelicate trade off that is unfortunate rather than unforgivable. Another casualty in the transition from page to screen is the frequent show stopping poetry, but it\u2019s not exactly politic to say something is good by virtue of its exceptions instead of its inclusions \u2014 it only ever means that Where the Crawdads Sing <\/em>isn\u2019t as bad as it could have been.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Olivia Newman (TV\u2019s FBI<\/em>) corrals her cast across a series of beautifully humid vistas, but steadfastly refuses to bring any of it to life. A huge issue with the ensemble is that Dickinson and Smith look too similar to be in any sort of love triangle without potentially confusing the audience; neither gives a bad performance \u2014 everyone is decently cast in this picture \u2014 but they\u2019re barely different enough to read well on film. Strathairn does what he can as the down-home country fried lawyer but the role comes across as play acting. It\u2019s a movie of surfaces, never interested in looking deeper into any of its characters. This is particularly ironic given that the muddied moral is that books should not be judged by their covers, but Edgar-Jones and the ensemble can\u2019t bring anything more to their parts than is written. It\u2019s the sort of film where you can say that everyone acquits themselves well, but it\u2019s uncertain to what end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Where the Crawdads Sing <\/em>was prime book club material, and that\u2019s what will ultimately boost the film to a baseline of success. The movie has the names and the pedigree, but there\u2019s no spell or mystique to it at all. The desperate need to adhere to a non-linear criminal framing when simple chronology would have done \u2014 like Alibar and Newman have never heard of a three act structure \u2014 hamstrings what could have been a simple story that opened up and revealed itself even if it was incapable of surprising the audience. What you get instead is a whirlwind tour of fifty year old class-based prejudice that telegraphs every punch, wrapped up with an original Taylor Swift song. Where the Crawdads Sing<\/em> is never enough, even if the meta story of Owens\u2019 crimes \u2014 and this apparent confession \u2014 is fascinating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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