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If you go to Where The Crawdads Sing looking for a nice animated film about a shellfish choir, you will be sorely disappointed.
Running time: 125 minutes. Rated PG-13 (Sexual content and some violence, including one sexual assault.) In theaters.
No, the cheesy film is about a beautiful woman who lives in a swamp. And don’t forget! Based on the popular novel by controversial author Delia Owens, the dialogue, when not sanitizing abuse and rape, becomes poetic about sea creatures, grasses and owls.
Long stretches of flower language are fine in a book. On screen, however, it’s pretentious. A slog in a bog.
Sure, we’re always happy to see Daisy Edgar-Jones, the talented British actress who made it big in the brilliant Normal People miniseries. But unlike this multi-layered show, “Crawdads” doesn’t give her anything to chew on except a Southern accent.
We first meet her character, Kya, as she is arrested for the murder of a man named Chase who fell to his death from a watchtower. To explain what happened, she tells her overly literary life story to her attorney, an Atticus Finch guy played by David Strathairn.
Little Kya (Jojo Regina) lives with her mother, siblings and a cruel father in a cabin far from a North Carolina town in the 1950s – you have to take a boat to get anywhere. As they all gradually flee their dangerous situation, including the no good pop, she is left to fend for herself.
Grown and gorgeous, she is shunned by town like Hester Prynne and derisively nicknamed “Swamp Girl”. North Carolina, we learn, is a bizarre state that hates beautiful, well-dressed people. But not from Kya’s crazy friendly childhood friend named Tate (Taylor John Smith), who starts courting her. It’s a match made in the marshlands: she’s obsessed with scallops and he wants to be a biologist.
Men drive up to Kya’s house in the middle of the night like they’re auditioning for an aquatic Say Anything, and next comes Chase (Harris Dickinson), an idiot.
Your choice is obvious, but it takes about 90 minutes of overripe dialogue to get there.
Tate and Chase are crudely drawn on-screen characters — an angel and a devil — and we never fully embrace either of them. Because the story is about a woman’s painful struggle, the film is afraid of ever getting fully romantic. The only thing Kya, an avid artist, loves is drawing pictures of snails.
Strange how hesitant director Olivia Newman deals with depictions of violence. Each regrettable punch and swipe is presented confidently and overcome with incredible ease. At the beginning of the film, one of Kya’s brothers – a little boy – leaves home, having just been beaten by his father. Bruised, bloody, and bruised, his nonchalant demeanor suggests he’s just left the candy store.
Also troublesome are the characters Mabel (Michael Hyatt) and Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.), flat-lettered black shopkeepers who exist only to comfort and protect Kya and have no other defining details or traits.
A touch of redemption comes from Edgar-Jones, a naturally vulnerable actress who can transform the most superficial material into something deep. We like Kya and accompany her every step of the way, even if over two hours it’s about 50 steps too much.
After an endless ending (more rambling shots of herons!), the bombastic ending is worth it.
However, I suspect it’s a lot more fun to arrive on a Kindle.
