Based on a best selling book 'Where the Crawdads Sing' is a period piece, a coming of age tale, a murder mystery, a court room drama, and a Nicolas Sparks-ish love story. Set in the North Carolina wet lands and told largely in flash back between 1953 and 1969 (plus a coda), it is the story of Kya (Played as a young girl by JoJo Regina and in her teens on by the striking Daisy Edger-Jones).
Abandoned by her family at a young age and left to mostly raise her self, the young girl has a natural sense of harmony with nature and does pretty well on her own. There is a friendly black couple who help where they can, and as a teenager a nice young man (Harris Dickinson) comes along and teaches her how to read, how to love and encourages her talents as a naturalist.
When love interest number one goes away to colloge, Kya is embittered for some years before along comes love interest number two played by Taylor John Smith. Unlike her first love this guy comes from money and has a dark side, though to the movies credit it makes him seem like a reasonably decent person, at least at first.
In time Harris comes back from colloge and wants to make amends, while Taylor becomes more of a problem and a publishing company becomes interested in Kya's drawings and writings. Then Taylor dies suddenly in a fall from an old forest service tower, Kya the obvious suspect.
David Stathairn is the kindly southern lawyer whose known Kya a little over the years and comes out of retirement to defend her. Rather conventional in both style and substance the film relies mostly on the likable and sympathetic presence of Edgar- Jones to carry it. Not without surpries, some rather subtly rendered, the false ending was a bit of a let down, the true ending scored back a few points. Still this movie is rather what you'd take it to be at first blush, a solid mediocrity just a little better then forgettable. **1/2
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