Film Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

When humans betray you, it’s time to turn to nature.

In a film world dominated by absurd superheroes and terrible monsters lurking in the dark, it’s a great relief to come across a story like “Where the Crawdads Sing,” Lucy Alibar’s adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 very human novel of a young girl who is abandoned by all but her abusive father and turns to the peaceful calm of local marshlands.

Kya Clark (British-born Daisy Edgar-Jones) is the refugee, disdainfully called Marsh Girl by local residents of Barkley Cove, North Carolina. Louisiana stands in for North Carolina, but the marshlands there are so beautifully, restfully filmed that I was almost envying Kya.

Kya has two friends in local general store owners Mabel (Michael Hyatt) and Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer, Jr.) She still cooks for her dad (Garret Dillahunt), though she admits to Mabel that “I don’t know how to do dinner without grits.”

The film, like the book, has three sections: Kya’s escape from the real world and her meetings with two possible boyfriends, followed by a murder mystery in which Kya is blamed for the murder of one, followed by the courtroom drama of Kya’s trial, defended by Tom Milton (and acted brilliantly by David Strathairn).

Kya spends the first part of the film showing us how she has survived the departure of each family member (though doubtless wishing she’d been invited to go with one of them), and how she plans to survive her abusive father: “Don’t let him see you. Fend for yourself.”

But it’s in the marsh that she’s truly at home. She collects leaves and occasional branches, which she sketches. She keeps the drawings out of Dad’s sight.

Kya is first attracted to passerby Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), the handsome son of wealth, who volunteers to teach Kya how to read, sees her drawings of nature and encourages her to send them to a publisher. But just as she begins to think about a future with Tate, he announces that he’s going off to college, and she’s deserted again.

Later, local stinker Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) shows up. 

“I don’t know how I felt about Chase,” Kya says, “but I was no longer lonely.”

Time jumps around here, and I didn’t bother to keep track. I was so caught up in Edgar Jones’ spectacular performance – and even delighted at the Perry Mason-like trial that attempts to convict Kya of Chase’s murder – that I just went along for the ride. Ah, memory.

“Crawdads” may take on too much and deliver too little for some viewers, but I for one can recommend it highly.