Where the Crawdads Sing 2022 Movie Review Trailer Poster Online

 Director: Olivia Newman
Writers: Lucy Alibar, Delia Owens
Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Harris Dickinson, Taylor John Smith

With the help of Reese Witherspoon and her book club, Delia Owens' novel "Where the Crawdads Sing" has been adapted into a film. Reese's book club designated the novel a selection when it was first published in 2018.

Is Southern Gothic an endangered genre? It seems like it shouldn't be; by transplanting the high  melodrama of classic Gothic literature into the decadent American south, Southern Gothic at its best presents an irresistible cocktail of shocking horror, tawdry sex, universal longing, and outrageous characters at the highs and lows of society. But its worldview seems to me like it may soon be as dusty and forgotten as its sprawling, dilapidated estates. Modern cultural sensitivity makes it increasingly hard to justify the “freak show” element that characterizes much of the genre; the current cultural divide makes it that much more difficult to identify with some of its more willfully backwards characters; and the leveling effect of internet culture and late-stage capitalism is quickly eroding regional differences across the country. We can keep writing in the milieu, but will future generations still recognize it?

Judging from the success of Delia Owens’ 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing, however, it would seem that there’s some moonshine in the old still yet. Though I will admit it flew under my radar, Owens' tale of murder, lust, and shellfish taxonomy clearly struck a chord with the masses; it has, to date, sold over 12 million copies, placing it comfortably on “all-time bestseller” lists just a few years out from its publication. Inevitably, it has now hit the big screen– but do its charms translate from the page?

The story begins, as so many Southern Gothic tales do, with a corpse lying face down in a muddy creek. The body is that of Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), a handsome and well-known citizen of the coastal town of Barclay Cove, North Carolina. As speculation swirls among the tight-knit community, the main suspect seems to be mysterious recluse Catherine “Kya” Clarke (Daisy Edgar-Jones), better known locally as “The Marsh Girl,” with whom Andrews was known to have been having a torrid affair. Pulled from her shack on the outskirts of town and placed unceremoniously in a jail cell, her fate de ella de ella lies in the hands of Tom Milton (David Straithairn), a kindly, Darrow-esque local attorney who has watched Kya grow up. A gentle, painfully shy soul with a keen eye for local wildlife and a knack for sketching them, Kya opens up and relays her hard-luck story to Milton– while Milton does his best to convince a jury of her “peers” that she is not, in fact, a swamp-witch with glowing eyes and the ability to change into a wolf.

For what it is, Where the Crawdads Sing is useful enough. Edgar-Jones is a charming screen presence (between this and FX's Under the Banner of Heaven, he seems to have the market cornered this year on small-town murder mysteries), and he makes one feel Kya's plight. The central mystery is gripping, and it's hard not to cheer for Straihairn as he calmly unravels the prosecution's argument. And as polished as the film is, director Olivia Newman effectively shoots its swampy locations, giving the city and its wilderness real character. This is a world where it's easy to want to get lost, which, I imagine, is probably a big factor in the book's success.

But that's kind of the thing, too: You shouldn't want to spend time in the world of a southern gothic cauldron. When I go to see a movie about a swamp-dwelling outcast embroiled in a murder trial after exposing the seedy underbelly of a well-to-do town, I want to leave feeling vaguely unpleasant; I want to smell the filth of the place, the stench of human monstrosity. Crawdads goes to great lengths to remove the guilt from the guilty pleasure of their baubles, and while I'm sure that goes a long way to explaining their popularity, it also makes for a much less interesting affair than it might have been. Where Crawdads Sing is very well done, and I have no doubt that it will satisfy its intended audience, but it's a bit too fancy for my liking.

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