Where the Crawdads Sing - Movie Review
1"Where the Crawdads Sing" (2022) directed by Olivia Newman is unfortunately a miss for me. I love dramas and this one had some great elements in it, in fact I would even say I did like it in general, but it's just too messy, incoherent, and all over the place to rate it highly as a critic, which is what I consider myself when making these reviews.
Kya Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones) grew up in the marsh away from the general population, with an abusive father, but she eventually outlasts him and ends up taking over the reins of the property. She spends the next years of her life raising herself, unable to read or write, and too afraid of going to school due to judgement. Kya gets arrested for the murder of one of her ex boyfriends named Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson). Despite having little to no evidence, the prejudiced town wants to convict her of this crime, even potentially considering the death penalty.
Where the Crawdads Sing was a very mixed experience for me personally. On one hand it features a great lead actor and carries a lot of heart and emotion to it, but on the other hand, it's manner of storytelling is borderline annoying and there isn't really a point or message to anything. Sure there may be some themes present but there is not an everlasting staying purpose or anything to walk away with, except I guess bittersweet sadness, but that's not a particularly powerful message, in fact it's not a message or point at all, it's just a gut-wrenching negative feeling and I kind of wish it didn't give me it. I will say that the ending is still excellent and while it's somewhat depressing, it's much more grounded than your average ending and it shows off a harsh reality, which I realize this sentence I've written contradicts my previous one, but that basically sums up my feelings towards the film; it was mixed and slightly confused.
I had major issues with the storytelling. The initial arrest for Kya is the weakest part of the film because it genuinely makes no sense, and the reason it makes no sense is because the facts will be very slowly given to you. In fact I would go as far as saying the entire murder trial was an unnecessary hook and bait for audiences to get them reading / watching in the first place, I was far more invested in her upbringing and general day to day living and the trial itself felt like an afterthought that was not all fleshed out. The romance is honestly questionable in this one, the first guy Tate (Taylor John Smith) seemed like an extremely ordinary person who was just lucky enough to find a desperate and lonely girl (not a good thing writing wise), and the second guy Chase was just a terrible one pump chump of a person who had no business existing in Kya's life to begin with, and without spoiling anything, I particularly had a problem with how Kya solves the Chase problem ultimately, I'm mostly okay with her final decision, but I'm less okay with her refusal to inform Tate in their entire life spent together.
Where the Crawdads Sing is a very mixed experience. It has a great lead and a great ending, but the best parts of it are filler content and the "main" plot is not executed well at all because it's poorly communicated and rarely occurring on screen.
Video by Rainy Nights.
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