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Where the CrawChads Fall to Their Death

 A marsh on the edge of swampland may not sound like the ideal place to live but Where the Crawdads Sing certainly makes it look appealing, with pristine waterways, secluded beaches, beautiful flora and friendly fauna making for an idyllic backrop to proceedings.


The life of protagonist Kya is less idyllic. Her family leave one by one until she is left to fend for herself as a young child. Apparently shunned by the local townspeople she is abandoned by her first love and accussed of the murder of her second partner, philandering local golden boy Chase.


The main problem with Where the Crawdads Sing is that the filmakers seem to have missed the part of storytelling school where you are told to show not tell. We are told by Kya's kindly lawyer that the locals have ostracised her but apart from some mean kids on her one day at school we dont see much evidence. She is constantly refered to as "smart as a whip" but we don't really get to see her show it. We know she is a survivor since she raised herself but we don't see how (I assume there was more to it than picking a few mussels). This leaves her character feeling rather thin and leads to the movie committing the cardinal sin of any book adaptation, giving the viewer a sense they need to check out the source material for the full picture. 


Despite this, the script and actress Daisy Edgar-Jones do a good enough job of getting you onside and make sure you are routing for Kya throughout the trial and certainly hoping she dodges the death penalty. The story deserves credit for keeping things simply and not getting bogged down by pointless twists but once the outcome is revealed the viewer should really have been treated to a sequence showing how things panned out. 


5 in tune crawdads out of 10 fish. 


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