A murder mystery that loses its way Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones. Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr, an...
A murder mystery that loses its way
Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones. Taylor John
Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr, and David Strathairn
Rating: 2.5/5
Olivia Newman’s latest venture is as surface level as it can get. The film starts as a murder mystery then quickly escalates into a courtroom drama and then even quicker, turns into a coming-of-age romantic drama. It’s as if the film can’t make up its mind as to what it is. It tries to tackle so many genres at once and succeeds in only one: romantic drama. In any case, the film is targeted toward teenagers.
The film follows Kya as she’s charged with
the murder of Chase Andrews. She goes on trial and intercutting with that, she
narrates her story from a prison cell.
If this wanted to be a murder mystery, it
definitely fails and if it wanted to be a courtroom drama it kind of succeeds.
This does not mean that the film is boring. It just feels unfinished and leaves
the audience underwhelmed since the finding-out-who-murdered-the-guy is really
ineffective.
The screenplay feels undercooked, and many
a time, focusing more on the unimportant parts rather than the important ones.
The ending is like the end of ‘The Notebook’ and is effective in the emotion
it’s trying to get out of the audience.
The main character of Kya is so far moved from
reality for most people that it’s really hard to care about her in any way but
is well portrayed by Daisy Edgar-Jones. The rest of the actors play their part effectively
while the cinematography is slick.
‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ could have really
benefited had it been in the hands of a better director and had a good
screenplay.
No comments