Where the Crawdads Sing Movie Review

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Written by: Delia Owens (based upon the novel by), Lucy Alibar (screenplay by)
Directed by: Olivia Newman
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, David Strathairn, Garret Dillahunt
Rated: PG-13
Watch the trailer

Plot
Abandoned as a girl, Kya raises herself in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. It’s a coming of age story wrapped in a murder mystery.

Verdict
The basis for the plot is coming of age story with romantic elements. There’s murder thrown in, but that seems purely to add excitement. It’s not a groundbreaking premise, but the setting and way of life are developed enough for it to feel authentic. My mistake was thinking the narrative would be a murder investigation. It’s not. This focuses on a way of life that’s outside of normal.
It depends.

Review
Delia Owens made her fiction debut at age seventy with the novel on which the film is based. She had published three non-fiction books about her studies. She had previously worked and lived in Zambia as conservationist. During the 1995 filming of a documentary following her and her husband’s work, a poacher was shot and presumably killed. Owens and her former husband are wanted for questioning by the Zambian government and have been advised by the American embassy to not return to Zambia. Zambia considers her a witness, not a suspect. Owens denies the incident.

Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kya

I feel a bit misled with the premise of this movie. I was expected a murder mystery, but this is a coming of age story bordering on a romance using murder as a framing device. That serves to add tension and intrigue as we jump back in time to Kya’s (Daisy Edgar-Jones) childhood and subsequent development as the movie works back to the point where this movie starts.

This provides a distinction between marsh and swamp. Kya is a marsh girl. A dead body kicks off the plot, but this is just a framing device as this jumps back to the beginnings of Kya’s life. She had a rough childhood and grew up poor. Her dad is her biggest hindrance, driving the rest of the family away and isolating her from anyone else. He’s a real piece of work. Kya ends up on her own, resourceful enough to provide for herself.

Taylor John Smith, Daisy Edgar-Jones play Tate, Kya

This is a movie about growing up as an outsider. Any attempt Kya makes to fit in never works. The case is a way to frame the story. The town deems her guilty just because she’s “marsh girl.” We see her relationships growing up, but she lives a very different life and most of that is on her own. Her first childhood friend is Tate (Taylor John Smith) as they both like nature. Tate gets flack for spending time with “marsh girl.” Based on how she grew up, she should be lacking social knowledge.
That never seems to be the case in this movie, though I don’t know where
she would have picked up the social intelligence she display with Chase.

We know there’s a murder and the question becomes who did it. The only suspects are Kya or Tate. That or it’s an accident as unlikely as that seems.

The murder aspect seems to be a way to broaden the audience. You could
take the murder out of this and it doesn’t change the core story that
much. If the log line had included the descriptor “coming of age” I
would have known what this would be. It’s certainly well done, but I expected more of a police investigation.