Where are the reviews of the song The Crawdads Sing? See what critics are saying about the adaptation of the bestseller. Delia Owens conquered the literary world with her 2018 novel “Where the Crayfish Sing”, and it is not surprising that the film was chosen for the film adaptation. Reese Witherspoon became the producer of the upcoming detective drama after she chose a book for her Hello Sunshine Book Club, and now viewers will see how the struggle of the Swamp Girl Kii will play out on the big screen. Where Crawdads Sing was shown to critics before its release on July 22, and the reviews are already ready.
Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kiya Clark, a girl who is forced to grow up early and learn to survive on her own in the swamps of North Carolina after being abandoned by her parents, brothers and sisters. Kiya turns out to be a murder suspect when her ex-boyfriend Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) turns up dead.
So how did critics react to director Olivia Newman’s vision of Delia Owens’ bestseller? Let’s turn to the reviews, starting with the CinemaBlend review “Where the Crayfish Sing”. Our own Sarah El-Mahmoud rates the film 3 stars out of 5, saying that the film loses some of the spirit of the beloved book, as Olivia Newman seems to avoid the rigidity of the story in a somewhat glossy adaptation. She claims:
Just because the story is popular and it has been allocated a significant budget to adapt to the big screen, why should the character’s spirit be beautiful and in demand when the very essence of her being is someone who is rough around the edges and plays? out of the mainstream?
Hoai-Tran Bui from SlashFilm was also not thrilled with the film, rating it 6 out of 10. This review says that the murder mystery turns into a glossy novel, which leads to a “soap dream”:
Despite the dirty stories surrounding its author, and despite the sensational murder trial that makes up the bulk of his narrative, “Where the Crayfish Sing” is pretty trite. His attempts at social commentary fail, while his heartbreaking jerks are half-assed. bildungsroman’s beats are promising before they give way to a soapy love triangle that looks like a rejected Nicholas Sparks. The saving grace is Edgar-Jones and David Streitern, the latter of whom plays the warm, guileless role of Kia’s lawyer and the lone sympathetic listener during the trial, which seems to have almost convicted her of murder on the basis of evidence that is clearly circumstantial.
Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter calls the adaptation a “convoluted moral fantasy” whose narrative relies heavily on racial and gender stereotypes. This review says that while the black characters are underdeveloped (the critic claims that this is also a mistake of the book), Kiya is drawn so beautiful and gentle that she looks more like a “manic pixie dream girl than a misanthropic protagonist”:
“Where the Crayfish Sing” is a kind of tiresome moral fantasy that feeds America’s mistaken idealism. This is an attempt at a complex story about rejection, difference and survival. But the film, like the novel on which it is based, sidesteps issues of race, gender and class that would structure its narrative and reinforce its overall thesis, resulting in a story that speaks more about how whiteness operates in a society allergic to interdependence. than about how communities let young people down.
David Ehrlich of IndieWire gave the film a C+ rating, stating that Olivia Newman turned Delia Owens’ literary sensation into a summer popcorn movie, as the film never dives deeper than the surface. The film adaptation is not worthy of the same celebration as the book, but it finds enough ways to survive, largely thanks to its star, the review says:
The film version of “Where the Crayfish Sing” is much more fun as a greenhouse turning the page than as a heartfelt story about female self-sufficiency. The fact that he is able to split the difference between Nicholas Sparks and Nell with any degree of verisimilitude is a testament to Daisy Edgar-Jones’ careful performance as Kia Clark.
Meanwhile, Owen Gleiberman of Variety finds “Where the Crayfish Sing” “convincing,” but says Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Cue is quite “balanced” and “sophisticated” for a character who has learned to survive on her own and is known as “wild.” a child.” In general, “Where the Crayfish Sing” is as dark as it is romantic, he says:
“Where the crayfish Sing” is both a mystery and romance, and a dream of nature, full of gnarled trees and hanging mosses, and a parable about female strength and independence in a world crushed by male will. … The finale is truly stunning, and although I wouldn’t admire it, I’ll just say that this is a film about the struggle with male intransigence, which has the courage of its outsider spirit.
If you want to know what it’s about, you can watch “Where the Crayfish Sing” when it hits theaters on Friday, July 22.
