Where the Crawdads Sing (Sony Pictures, PG-13)
It's been a long time since I watched a movie like Where the Crawdads Sing. Not that murder mysteries aren’t something that I enjoy, Knives Out is one of my favorite movies from the last five years. What I’m getting at is a little more specific, because to limit Where the Crawdads Sing to being described as just a murder mystery would be a bit disengenuous. It’s nearly equal parts a coming of age tale, a romance, a murder mystery, and a courtroom drama, and while I enjoy all of those things, balancing them all at once is a precarious task. Knowing that this movie is based on a novel contextualizes some of the rapid transitioning. Skimming through pages of a book, changing the year, a location, or a specific character arc, while not visually represented, tends to be easier to grasp. Additionally, books move at a slower pace by default. Balancing all of the plots this story contains in the span of a two hour movie is prone to messiness. Where the Crawdads Sing is an admirable attempt at an adaptation. Even if it occasionally catches you off guard by accelerating the plot.
Kya is a self-made woman, a description that is both literal and almost entirely untrue. There is this concept held by many that no one is truly self-made, and in this film that same principle maintains validity. The youngest of a family living in the marshes of North Carolina, we first are made to understand the tenuous conditions at home. Her family is large, her mother is quiet, her father is abusive, and within minutes she is alone. Her mother, unable to withstand the abuse, leaves and in short order all of her siblings also make their escape. It’s at once confusing that none of her siblings thought to take her with them, but I presume that is why we have a story at all. She learns to live in the shadow of her alcoholic father until the day he leaves and never returns. From that point Kya lives by herself. She digs mussels and clams out of the marsh and sells them at a tackle shop for food, she draws pictures of the wildlife she encounters, and she grows up largely on her own. Yet, despite the solitude of her early years, it’s very clear that what she has experienced has taught her a great deal about how to interact with the world. At the very least it has conditioned her approach. She is careful and measured, only interacting with the world when she has to. This leads to the people of the nearby town referring to her as “marsh girl,” at once giving her a place in the world but also excluding her from that world. She is seen as a witch, a wild child. To put it simply, she is ostracized. Unable to attend school without ridicule, approached with caution by all outsiders, and pursued by social workers looking to put her into a group home.
It is immediately made clear that this story is focused on the death of a young man named Chase Andrews. It’s unclear how Kya’s life is tied to his death, but as the film progresses we are made familiar this Chase, Tate, Mr. Milton, and several others that Kya interacts with. The mystery weaves and unfolds itself with just the right amount of misdirection to keep you guessing until the very last moments, something that sits at the core of any good mystery. Throughout our journey, we are introduced to new characters, troubling situations, heartbreaking relationships, and Kya’s ever-evolving trust of outsiders. Even as the people of Barkley Cove come to see her as more than an outsider herself. Discovering what truly happened to Chase is intricate, well told, and given just enough time in the balance of the films pursuits to have a genuinely pleasing payoff.
I enjoyed my time with Where the Crawdads Sing. There is a format to romance movies that I don’t particularly love, that I can’t explicitly state without revealing too many plot details, but I was invested in Kya’s relationships and even more invested in her well-being. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays her very well, even if there are a few uneven moments, and David Strathairn is a welcome presence in any film. For fans of the book, I think you will be pleased with this adaptation, even if it has to take shortcuts because of the medium it is in. Its not a film that needs to be seen on the big screen, but it will make for a great friends night trip to the cinema.
~Caleb