"Where The Crawdads Sing" Gains $17 Million in its Opening Weekend.

We begin in October 1969 in the marshes of fictional Barkley Cove, North Carolina, where a couple of boys stumble upon a dead body lying in the muck. It turns out to be Chase Andrews, a popular big fish in this insular small pond. And Edgar-Jones’ Kya, with whom he’d once had an unlikely romantic entanglement, becomes the prime suspect. She’s an easy target, having long been ostracized and vilified as The Marsh Girl—or when townsfolk are feeling particularly derisive toward her, That Marsh Girl.

Flashbacks reveal the abuse she and her family suffered at the hands of her volatile, alcoholic father (Garret Dillahunt), and the subsequent abandonment she endured as everyone left her, one by one, to fend for herself—starting with her mother. These vivid, early sections are the most emotionally powerful, with Jojo Regina giving an impressive, demanding performance in her first major film role as eight-year-old Kya.

As she grows into her teens and early 20s and Edgar-Jones takes over, two very different young men shape her formative years. There’s the too-good-to-be-true Tate (Taylor John Smith), a childhood friend who teaches her to read and write and becomes her first love. (“There was something about that boy that eased the tautness in my chest,” Kya narrates.) And later, there’s the arrogant and bullying Chase (Harris Dickinson), who’s obviously bad news from the start, something the reclusive Kya is unable to recognize.

But what she lacks in emotional maturity, she makes up for in curiosity about the natural world around her, and she becomes a gifted artist and autodidact. Edgar-Jones embodies Kya’s raw impulses while also subtly registering her apprehension and mistrust. Pretty much everyone lets her down and underestimates her, except for the kindly Black couple who run the local convenience store and serve as makeshift parents (Sterling Macer Jr. and Michael Hyatt, bringing much-needed warmth, even though there’s not much to their characters). David Strathairn gets the least to work with in one of the film’s most crucial roles as Kya’s attorney: a sympathetic, Atticus Finch type who comes out of retirement to represent her.

This becomes especially obvious in the film’s courtroom scenes, which are universally perfunctory and offer only the blandest cliches and expected dramatic beats. Every time “Where the Crawdads Sing” cuts back to Kya’s murder trial—which happens seemingly out of nowhere, with no discernible rhythm or reason—the pacing drags and you’ll wish you were back in the sun-dappled marshes, investigating its many creatures. (Polly Morgan provides the pleasing cinematography.)

Edgar-Jones perfectly portrays the Kya that the world fell in love with - through the pages of Delia Owens book of the same name. The theater audience felt the fear and saddness of Kya through the screen, but the ending of the film is what sealed the deal for book lovers. The truth about Andrew's passing is revealed in the perfect way that honors the book beautifully.

SOURCE: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/where-the-crawdads-sing-movie-review-2022