‘Crawdads’ May Not Wow But It Doesn’t Fail Either
Starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Garret Dillahunt, Harris Dickinson
Rated PG-13
Drama
Run time: 2 hr, 5 min
Directed by Olivia Newman
In theaters July 15, 2022
Back in the Before Covid Times (patent pending), the novel Where The Crawdads Sing took book clubs across America by storm. I’ll admit, I gave in and got on that crazy long waiting list at the library and finally joined the ranks of people devouring it page by page. Unfortunately, my expectations were a bit too high, and while the book is absolutely beautiful, there were moments that I felt were lacking. That feeling carried over to the movie, even with the lowered expectations that I had from the book. While it definitely did not get a fair take from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes (for heaven’s sake, it got the same score as Moonfall and that is just a tragedy), it also didn’t blow me away.
The story is fraught with suspenseful drama. A young woman named Kya (Edgar-Jones) has a tumultuous childhood, filled with abuse and abandonment. By the time she’s in her late teen years, she is self sufficient, relying on no one but herself for survival - because she has plenty of proof that others will not come through for her. However, a young man that she had met a decade or so prior when they were children (Smith) finds his way back into her life. She falls, and falls hard. He does too. But unfortunately, her love life has just gotten started down a stressful, and often utterly devastating, path. It devolves into even more loss, an accusation of murder when the other of her paramours turns up dead in a suspicious manner. Did she do it? Didn’t she? Who can say?
While the plot definitely stays true to the book from what I remember, there was a level of awkwardness to the Kya character that translated into bad writing or stilted dialogue. They tried to preserve a lot of that by involving a voiceover narrative throughout the film to give us more insight into her, but it didn’t quite fit. The voiceovers were extremely articulate, fluid. Edgar-Jones, unfortunately, as well as those interacting with her, often sounded like they were reading off of cue cards. It threw me off, as I’d seen her in many an impressive role (most recently in the horror film Fresh opposite Sebastian Stan), and this did not showcase her as well as it should have. Despite Kya being an incredibly sympathetic character, I wasn’t able to connect with her as I did in the book.
The best thing about this movie (and its source material) is that it follows the path the Gone Girl paved, but not identically. There is still an overwhelming feeling of, “Well, if she did do it….would you blame her?” But rather than an incredibly dark cityscape as the backdrop of horrific crimes, the story unfolds in the gorgeous, albeit spooky and mysterious, marshes of North Carolina. Rather than being in the present, it takes place roughly sixty years prior, well before the time of cell phones and that level of technology. It’s a simpler time, which makes things even more interesting. There’s a lack of accessibility that forces the audience to make their own judgments in regards to the story they are told. They have to infer things. There is a lack of proof that creates an even more intriguing aura around an already engaging story. Which is why, despite its faults, Crawdads is one of the best adaptations I’ve seen in regards to channeling that same overall theme and emotions that the book successfully brings.