Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

	Directed by: Olivia Newman	COUNTRY USA GENRE Drama/Mystery NORWEGIAN TITLE Der krepsene synger RUNNING TIME 125 minutes
	Produced by: Reese Witherspoon Lauren Naustadter
	Written by (based on the novel by Delia Owens): Lucy Alibar

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Catherine "Kya" Clark	Daisy Edgar-Jones	½
Tate Walker	Taylor John Smith	½
Chase Andrews	Harris Dickinson	½
Tom Milton	David Strathairn	½
Mabel Maddison	Michael Hyatt	-
"Ma" Julienne Clark	Ahna O'Reilly	-
"Pa" Jackson Clark	Garret Dillahunt	½

Review

Based on the best-selling novel by Delia Owens, this is an evidently enticing mystery story set in a luscious Louisiana back country where people are poor and live off of and in harmony with nature – but still somehow have managed to maintain perfect make-up and hair styles ever since the 1950s. British actress Daisy Edgar-Jones plays young Kya, who after having been abandoned by her mother and brother, beaten by her alcoholic father, and then raped by an ex-boyfriend, is being accused of the murder of the latter. If you think this sounds pulpy, you're quite right. And if Delia Owen's novel was able to disguise this notion somehow, this adaptation directed by Olivia Newman certainly isn't. We're in mushy territory in more ways than one, and the trio of young, urban actors leading the cast are never able to transcend the exteriors for which they were chosen and get down to the grittiness these characters should have possessed. Newman only has interest in – or the ability to – scratch the surface of it all. The film is like a blank postcard from the past; it transports you nowhere, except into Hollywood glossiness. With David Strathairn as the girl's defense attorney, and Garret Dillahunt as her abusive father, arguably the only two well-cast performers in this misfire.