Directed By Olivia Newman

Starring – Daisy Edgar-Jones, Harris Dickinson, Taylor John Smith

The Plot – Kya Clark (Edgar-Jones), otherwise known as the Marsh Girl by the townspeople of Barkley Cove, is mysterious and wild. Abandoned by her family, the film is a coming-of-age story of a young girl raised by the marshlands of the south in the 50’s. Watching many years past, when the town hotshot is found dead, and inexplicably linked to Kya, the Marsh Girl is the prime suspect in his murder case.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING – Official Trailer (HD) – YouTube

POSITIVES

Without question, the most satisfying element of the film is its faithful approach in seamlessly replicating much of the environmental impulses that nearly makes it a character of it’s in the established world. This is two-fold, actually, in that Newman’s direction not only effectively channels the whispers of the social commentary permeating around this girl who lives in the Marsh, but also in the articulation of the Marsh itself, vividly conveying an immersive quality thanks in whole to some out of this world production value that continuously beats as Kya’s pulse of consciousness. The sound design is invigorating, enchanting our audibility with the chirps of birds or the humming of bugs, and the cinematography from Polly Morgan, both in faded color grading and absorbing shot selection, makes the most of the on-site locations with an influential tangibility that can’t be duplicated by computer generated special effects of the hollowest variety. In addition to the setting, the turn from Edgar-Jones was easily the best performance of the film, and one that spawned no shortage of authenticity for the occasion. Daisy walks a thin line, really, as her character design could easily come across as laughable if she doesn’t coherently balance the frail humanity with the occasionally animalistic impulses of her various interactions, but she rises to the occasion with a consistency for vulnerability that earns her never-ending empathy to the blossoming of her performance, all the while solidifying her as a force to be reckoned with for future roles.

NEGATIVES

Above all else, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is a dull and uninteresting film from the word go, and not just from a pacing perspective that somehow over-exerts on certain scenes, while under developing on others. Whether in the various timelines it constantly tries to juggle with its spontaneous storytelling, or the lack of momentum attained in pivotal sequencing that dramatically undershoots the execution, it’s clear that this is another adaptation that doesn’t translate well from the pages of a book where imagination often fills in the blanks to such creative hinderances. One such example is in the dialogue, which is as laughably bad and on-the-nose as one might expect from romantic drama’s but made even worse when bottled with these metaphors for nature that feel like they were elicited with groaning from the audience in mind. Beyond this, the one intriguing aspect of the film, the mystery, is perpetrated not only with extreme distance by shuffling us away from the tension of the moment to focus on Kya’s never-ending backstory, but also in the fumbling execution of the big twist, which doesn’t happen until the 120th minute of a two-hour run time. While I can say that I did accurately predict what was coming, my bigger problem is in the unraveling of its reveal, serving as nothing more than an afterthought for a bombshell that could’ve leveled the vast character study supplanted before us with just enough tender care to handle the brunt of its blow with some kind of palpable impact. Instead, it comes and goes with little to no resonance over the story, and completely wastes away what I know in my heart to be the sun of the novel that everything else revolves around. It also raises more questions of doubt the longer I think about it, with problems of timing and shall we say perfectionist planning to work out every detail that a criminal mastermind couldn’t even attain with a lifetime of knowledge at their capabilities. Finally, it’s a film that can’t even remain true to itself, as it’s marketed as a thriller, yet as squeaky clean of a Nicholas Sparks film as you’re ever going to find. The problem with the latter, and even crediting Sparks is painful for me to exude, is that he at least attains a chemistry between his leads that conjures up something warm for the duration of his run times. Here, there’s two chances in two different male leads to pull this off, and neither of them even come close. For Smith’s Tate, a permeating passion never elicits itself in the engagements with Kya, made all the more troubling by the script’s lack of interest in fleshing him out as a living, breathing person, and Dickinson’s Chase is completely overdone as an antagonist without a shred of nuance or subtlety to the backgrounds he literally and figuratively destroys as a temperamental tornado used to occasionally inflict an ounce of tension to the circumstances. His design is essentially the problem with every character in the film, in that they are all just one thing forever and for only, but for Dickinson you smell it in him before he’s even had a chance to speak, in turn contradicting Kya’s blossoming intelligence in ways that keep her from seeing the aspects and problems of characters that they audience does in less than ten seconds spent with those she comes across.

OVERALL
“Where the Crawdads Sing” is everything wrong with contemporary romance adaptations. It’s a sparkless, humorless, superficial drab of an engagement that continuously misses its mark with melodramatic plot threads and cringy dialogue bringing unintentional hilarity to the aversion of its source material. These Crawdads are painfully tone deaf, and they sing during moments when the fat lady should’ve.

My Grade: 4/10 or D-