Where The Crawdads Sing

 This review may contain spoilers!

 

Where The Crawdads Sing is the film adaptations of Delia Owens' bestselling novel of the same name. In this story we follow Kya, a young woman who has grown up predominantly alone in the marshes of North Carolina. The story is one of Kya's survival while also penning a gentle courtroom murder mystery. This is a film that really takes us through learning the story of Kya exceptionally well. Right from the start she is presented as an outsider, someone who is different in her own hometown and you pretty quickly come to view her as 'the marsh girl' in the same way her twon does. But then the film shifts its narrative, we go right back to when Kya first lived in the marshes with her family as a child. We come to know this young girl as a survivor of domestic violence at the hands of her father; the way her mother, siblings and eventually father came to abandon her to live alone. Kya was forced to scrounge for scraps in order to survive and got better at living this way as life went on. She was emotionally devastated when the man who taught her to read and write, the man she fell in love with, abandoned her without a word. From here she falls into a relationship with a man, Chase, who lies and tries to manipulate her. As she grows to recognise Chase's behaviour as abusive and akin to her father's, Kya begins to hide and lash out against him. At the same time Chase's character is revealed to be darker than first feared, he destroys her property, physically assaults her and then attempts to sexually assault her too. The film tries to sway you into deciding who actually committed Chase's murder the entire time, while also condemning the way in which most of kya's town abandoned her to a poorly state of living. ultimately, I found the answer to the murder mystery to be quite satisfying and very in theme with the rest of the film's plot.

The way this film captures the New Orleans marshes where they filmed is really beautiful; a major aspect of this film is how Kya emotionally connects to the marsh and the camerawork tells that story wonderfully. I also think it's worth noting Taylor Swift's contribution to the film with 'Carolina', it closes the film into the credits but it's a very raw ballad that I think fits the tone of the feature well.

 

Taylor John Smith, who played Tate Walker, is a very charismatic and likeable figure in this; the romantic chemistry cultivated by him and Edgar-Jones is stunning. Harris Dickinson, who played Chase Andrews, is intensely unnerving and makes for the perfect antagonist; Dickinson's portrayal of such an entitled man who takes what he wants through force is a hard watch in the best way possible. David Strathairn, who played Tom Milton, is genuinely having his Atticus finch moment right before us here; Strathairn's calm and genuine approach to a man of justice makes him quite a goodly role. Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer Jr., who played Mabel and Jumpin' respectively, are these consistent pillars of care and support throughout the feature; I loved the paternal energy from this pair towards both Edgar-Jones and Regina. Garret Dillahunt, who played Pa, is almost horrifying in his portrayal of this openly wild and abusive man; I was impressed with the depth Dillahunt brought to the role and the small vulnerabilities we were able to see within Pa. Jojo Regina, who played Little Kya, lends herself to the same style of performance Edgar-Jones does marvelously; watching Regina bring such stubborn yet heartbreakingly optimistic energy tot he role is a real strength in such a young performer. Luke David Blumm, who played Little Tate, is immediately as charismatic as his older counterpart; I loved the scene in which Blumm stood up to Dillahunt's role.

However, the best performance came from Daisy Edgar-Jones, who played Kya Clark. This role was a very bold performance, Kya is by nature quite a guarded person and not especially talkative. She exists on the outside and Edgar-Jones worked hard on her body language to show her lack of comfort in social situations. I loved seeing this character steadily open up to characters; the found family dynamic she has with Macer Jr. and Hyatt's roles, and the beautiful romantic chemistry shared with Smith. Watching the immeasurable grief and pain at being abandoned again Edgar-Jones expresses when Smith's role abandons her character is utterly devastating. But what I like about this character was that at no point did she seem prepared to break; Edgar-Jones played her vulnerable moments but she played to the character's strength even better. The really painful on-screen relationship between her role and Dickinson's was important, she was a fighter throughout it but she also had to portray a lot of suffering too. Daisy Edgar-Jones really has a bit of a 'star beginning to rise' thing going for her right now and I'm quite excited to see where her career takes her after this project.

Where The Crawdads Sing stumbles majorly when it comes to how it tells its story. The content is brilliant but the way the narrative is structured and told doesn't always grip the audience. The murder mystery component of the film should be really thrilling but it's quite light fair in delivery. Worse than that it never feels like this big urgent problem, more like a boiling pot that we're steadily waiting to get to temperature. The film is structured by taking us back on long flashbacks before shunting back very quickly to the legal drama around the murder msystery, the timing on this is quite infrequent and could have been spread out better. I also thought the earlier period of Kya's life was told well but really meandered along, especially when we got the romantic storyline between her and Tate. The sort of fairytale romance between that pair was nice but we didn't need as much of it as we got. The editing had a hand in this ambling pace, often letting sequences drag out for too long and I found there were some very poorly placed cuts within certain scenes. Mychael Danna's score isn't especially impressive, it crests very lightly and has a little edge in the more frantic scenes but I found it quite a flat thing overall.

Logan Macrae, who played Jodie Clark, wanders into this film quite late in the narrative and never makes a lasting impact; Macrae more functions to place a bit of exposition and really doesn't strike up a brotherly bond with Edgar-Jones. Bill Kelly and Jayson Warner Smith, who played Sheriff Jackson and Deputy Perdue respectively, really start the film out on quite a generic couple of scenes; Kelly in particularly gives a very stereotypical portrayal of a smalltown stoic law officer. Will Bundon, who played Little Jodie, doesn't really do much to impress upon the viewer much of a sibling connection to Regina; I found Bundon's line delivery to be a bit too straightforward and obvious.

What's on offer here is quite a powerful story of a woman surviving trauma and abuse with an understated ensemble cast. I would give Where The Crawdads Sing a 7.5/10.