credit: Where the Crawdads Sing
Labeling this movie as a murder mystery would be fair since the premise does lean in that direction, but there’s much more to this story than the murder of Chase Andrews, a young man who’s found by two little boys out in the marsh one day. When Kya, the story’s main protagonist, is presumed to be guilty of his murder thanks to their past relationship, the story kicks off by showing how Kya grew up in the marshland with her family and an abusive father who drove her mother to leave first, then all of her siblings in turn. While her father would calm down eventually, he left as well, which meant Kya had to learn how to grow up on her own in an environment that could have been much harder on her had she possessed little to no knowledge about it. But what emerges is the idea that Kya is quite intelligent, and with the help of her friend Tate, who later on becomes her love interest, she ends up creating a life for herself that is shown disrespect and disdain by the townsfolk but is in fact far freer than many of those who looked down upon her for so many years.
credit: Where the Crawdads Sing
The pace of this movie is great since it leaves a person wanting to know more.
A lot of people aren’t exactly into dramas such as this since they might think that it moves too slowly, and more than that, it’s not exactly a thrilling movie that requires that much thought. Instead, it’s a deep and moving feature that is more or less meant to show the development and life of a young girl as she becomes a grown woman and the trials she has to face to simply exist in a world that makes sense to her. The great thing about this movie is that it does move at a clip that’s capable of keeping the attention of the audience since, even in the slowest of moments, there’s enough to take in that makes it worth watching this movie.
The love story between Kya and Tate is kind of easy to predict.
Tate is the kind of guy that one can see is going to be spirited when he needs to be but also hesitant to exist in more than one world simultaneously. His decision to go away to college and then not return for so long is regrettable since it meant that he was going to break Kya’s heart and turn her against him in a very pointed way that, amazingly, wasn’t bound to last that long. Tate’s bond with Kya starts early on in their lives and can be seen as a positive moment in her existence since Tate is a non-judgmental and very accepting person that doesn’t covet Kya but definitely values what she brings to his life. Unfortunately, choosing between her and the world outside of the marsh is a choice that a lot of people have trouble with since settling when none is so young is a bit tough, especially when they haven’t experienced the world outside of their own. Even Kya had to step out of her comfort zone at some point, and when she did, great things happened. And she still returned home when all was said and done.
credit: Where the Crawdads Sing
One has to wonder if Kya would get away with this today.
It’s a spoiler to those who might not have watched the movie, but by the end of the movie, it’s established, after Kya’s death, that she did have something to do with Chase’s death. While he definitely deserved punishment for what he tried to do to her, one has to wonder if Chase’s family would receive vindication in the current era since it was made clear in Kya’s journal that sometimes the natural predator had to die. Plus, it had already been made clear that men like Chase needed to have their way before they were truly satisfied. It’s easy to wonder if even Tate’s presence would have been enough to keep Chase from doing what he wanted, especially since he had friends that might have helped him.
What’s left unsaid is how Chase was tricked into falling from the watchtower.
The explanation is given that he had to fall through the opening, but it’s still interesting enough to wonder if Kya had the strength and the element of surprise necessary to push Chase or if he was inebriated and, therefore, not entirely cognizant of what was going on. While it’s fair to guess what happened since it’s established in the movie that it DID happen, there’s still a question of how Kya got the best of her aggressor. In the long run, though, it was a good movie and doesn’t require that much of an explanation.
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