A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man she was once involved with.
Sometimes a movie comes along that is filled with so much unanticipated emotions and soulfulnesses it knocks you sideways. Such is the case for “Where the Crawdads Sing.” I knew the movie was based on a book, but having never read it or knowing anything about it, I went into “Crawdads” unprepared for what to expect.
“Where the Crawdads Sing” tells the story of Kya Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a young woman who grows up on a North Carolina marsh after being abandoned by her family at only six years of age. When an ex-boyfriend, Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), turns up dead on the marsh, Kya is the prime suspect and is arrested and imprisoned. Labeled an outcast her whole life by the townsfolk, a local attorney, Tom Milton (David Strathairn), empathizes with her and takes her case pro bono as he has always felt compassion for her over the years. Now he must try and convince the jury that Kya, a gentle but resourceful young woman, is incapable of murder, but with evidence slowly mounting against her, Tom will have to overcome impossible odds, and the town’s already biased opinion of her.
The film starts in 1952 when Kya (Jojo Regina) is six years old and lives with her mother, father, and four older siblings. Her father’s alcoholism takes its toll on the family, his violent outbursts forcing her mother and eventually her older siblings to all move out, leaving Kya and her father behind. She learns to keep out of his way to avoid violence, but one day she wakes up to find him gone, never returning again. Watching Kya realize that everyone she’s known her whole life have abandoned her is heartwrenching, but that is short-lived as she learns how to become self-reliant and exercise control over her own life. She learns how to catch and trade fresh mussels to make money, and out in the swamps, she meets and befriends Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), an older friend of her brother’s. Over the years, he teaches her how to read and write, and eventually, they fall in love, but when he is accepted into the University of North Carolina, he promises to return but never does, and Kya is left alone again, and you feel her heartbreak and isolation.
Years pass, and she meets Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), a local rich boy who becomes infatuated with her and continuously turns up at her house, asking for a date. She concedes, and they begin going steady but later finds out that he is secretly engaged and breaks off the relationship. He refuses to accept her response and follows her back to the marsh, where he becomes violent with her, but she retaliates and gives as good as she gets, leaving him battered and suffering from a bruised ego. She leaves, and at this point, we learn about Chase’s corpse turning up in the marsh.
The film switches between young Kya and then flashes forward in time to when she is 19 years old, and while many movies use this technique, sometimes to maddening effect, “Where the Crawdads Sing” employs it beautifully, leaving you wanting more from each version of Kya. Jojo Regina, as young Kya, steals every scene she is in; her wide-eyed innocence and oblivious awareness of what is going on around her add to the heartbreak she currently knows nothing about but will eventually succumb to. But it is Daisy Edgar-Jones, as the older Kya, who is the breakout star here. She gives an astonishing performance that touched me to my core, and it’s been a long time since an actor has had that sort of profound effect on me. Everything she does, everything she says, are all absolute, like there was no other option of solving whatever problem she faced except for the choices she made. While Kya never leaves the marsh she has grown up in her whole life, she possesses a seasoned sophistication, thanks to the books Tate taught her how to read at an early age, and while she is considered an outsider by most of the townsfolk, she is more cultured and experienced in life than most of them ever will be.
Watching Kya slowly but cautiously fall in love with Tate and he with her is one of the most poignant and emotionally exhilarating scenes in recent memory. She has known nobody her whole life, and while they initially start as friends, there is undeniable chemistry between them after a considerable time, they have their very first kiss, and we celebrate along with her as she feels what it’s like to be in love, and to be loved. When Tate has to go to university and promises he will return, she believes him, and so do we, but deep down, there is the possibility he won’t come back, and when he doesn’t, and her heart breaks, we are mad at him, but we also understand there is a big world out there that some people want to explore.
When she meets Chance, his arrogant and pretentious personality turns her off, but he gradually appears to loosen up, stating that the pressure of being the town’s star quarterback hinders everything he does, so being with her away from the worries of the world is a welcome relief. He comes to her house in the marsh regularly, but instinctively, Kya is more cautious with him than she ever was with Tate and her suspicions serve her well. When she ends their relationship after finding out he is engaged, he appears in the marsh, drunk and full of professed regret, but when she tells him the relationship is over, in a fit of anger, he punches her and knocks her to the ground. Fortunately, her years of living alone in the wilderness and her learned survival experiences materialize, allowing her to knock him down and take off. Tate and Chance are polar opposites, and for Kya to truly experience life, she has to be subjected to both to appreciate the good.
The cast is uniformly excellent, and director Olivia Newman, in her first big-screen directorial debut, delivers a story that is filled with an assortment of raw sentiments that leaves you emotionally drained; love, hate, sympathy, cruelty, contentment, despair, no emotion is spared and neither will you be. I had no idea what to expect as the movie started, but I can tell you this, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is my favorite film of the year so far, and to be perfectly honest, I doubt any other movie will take its place. Very Highly Recommended.
In Theaters Friday, July 15th
