where the crawdads sing

Where the Crawdads Sing: Sentimental junk

Where the Crawdads Sing is NOT what I thought it is. You see, I saw it mentioned on the website of the local cinema chain that I frequent. I have a £15 a month card, which is called Unlimited Cinema, and is awesome (highly recommend). It let’s you go to as many movies a month as you want. So when I saw ‘her dark past comes back to haunt her’ I assumed it was a horror. I then saw it was based on a famous book. And, putting 2+2 together, got ‘carrot’. You see, I thought it was a horror movie. I mean, even the poster looks like one! I was wrong. Oh sweet baby Jesus, I was oh-so-wrong.

Where the Crawdads Sing is not the sort of movie I’d ever watch. It’s based on the best-selling novel by Delia Owens, and is probably best selling because it was punted by Reese Witherspoon, one of the best selling novels of all time, in America. It’s got racism, because it’s set in… I was going to say in 1969 but 2022 would work for that too. It’s also got misogynism. Again, 2022 is calling, America. And it’s about a girl who grows up in a marsh.

Here’s the synopsis:

Abandoned as a girl, Kya raised herself in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. For years, rumours of the marsh girl haunted Barkley Cove, isolating the sharp and resilient Kya from her community. Drawn to two young men from town, she opens herself to a new and startling world. However, when one of them is found dead, Kya immediately becomes the main suspect. As the case unfolds, the verdict as to what happened becomes increasingly unclear, threatening to reveal many secrets.

Wiki

Vomit inducing

Kya, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones in a film where she is absolutely under used, is a character that I just couldn’t click with. She annoyed me more than pulled on my heart strings. She sits there, unwilling to mount a defence for herself, instead leaving it to a kind lawyer (David Strathairn), to come up with a defence. Like, speak up for yourself, god damn it! It’s so overly sentimental I wanted to vomit.

She has two relationships. One with simple Tate (Taylor John Smith). My lords, he is the worst. Not only is he sickly sweet to the point that he is a symbol more than a character, but he literally stops mid way through sex to declare ‘no, I can’t do this. It will only bring you harm’. I was left wondering, what the hell are you on about? You end up fucking her over anyway!

Needs tinder

Kya, obviously irked that this moron can’t act like a normal boyfriend, and also hurt because the ponce ditches her for college, hooks up years later with jock Chase (Harris Dickinson). He’s the one Kya is accused of killing. He’s also a dick head. Embodying arrogance, privilege and entitlement, he’s another one-dimensional symbol that is meant to stand in stark contrast to Simple Tate. I mentioned he’s a dick head, right?

So the film jumps between prison cell/courtroom, and the past. As Kya tells her lawyer what happened. Only she isn’t telling him what happened. I think. It’s a wholly fucking mess. We have the recollection of things but I am not sure if we’re supposed to see it from a biased point of view, or from an omnipotent viewpoint. The trial is embarrassing and is rushed through faster than an episode of Law and Order. Dun Dun. Spoilers incoming for the ending.

The ending of Where the Crawdads Sing

She is found innocent. The evidence was weak at best, so this makes sense. She ends up with Simple Tate, and they end up ‘married’ (not really, she just says they are) and grow old together. She then dies. And Simple Tate is left alone. He’s going through her things, and he finds the necklace that weas key evidence in Chase’s murder. Implying that she did in fact, kill him. It’s such a shit ending because up till this point we’ve been given flashbacks of her past. Lawyer says ‘she is a lovely girl’. We get flashback showing she is. But not with this. It’s a copout to make her appear almost holy. Where are the darker aspects of her personality that would lead her to kill? She mentions, in a throw away comment, how in nature animals killing themselves is okay. But nothing else. Weak. Sauce.

kya, as a child, is dirty and ragged. Because her family has left her. So she has to fend for herself. So how she turns into an absolutely stunning, slim, beautiful girl with hair like an angel, is beyond me. The obvious answer to this choice it pandering to a young demographic of girls who will swoon over her.

I did contemplate walking out the cinema halfway through, but wanted to see how strong I was. And I was strong. This movie, based on a book I still can’t muster any inclination or want to read, is dull. The cinematography is stunning, the soundtrack is, no. I can’t remember so probably meh.

I give Where the Crawdads Sing a whopping

3/10

Sentimental crap with thin characters and non-sensical courtroom framing.

crawdad

/ˈkrɔːdad/ a freshwater crayfish.

Learn to pronounce

noun

NORTH AMERICAN

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