YNOT at the Movies

Can you imagine what it's like when everyone whom you care about leaves you one by one? That's precisely what happened to Kya, a young girl in the marsh of North Carolina, back in the '50s to '60s. Yet, she overcame the emotional toll of all the abandonment and taught herself to become an author of reference books about seashells and seabirds. The director Olivia Newman tells Kya's remarkable story in "Where the Crawdads Sing" (USA 2022 | 125 min.), an adaptation of Delia Owens's best-selling novel with the same title.

As if the abandonment aspect is not harsh enough, the film opens with a trial in which Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is accused of the murder of her ex-boyfriend Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson). A local lawyer, Tom Milton (David Strathairn), volunteers to be her defense attorney. Upon Tom's persuasion, Kya starts to open up and reveal her poignant past.

As a child, Kya never attends school while living with her abusive father in an isolated house in the middle of a marshland. Her mother leaves home first to escape her father, followed by her sisters, and then her brother, and then finally her father. Living alone in the wild, she becomes an outsider to the community and is called the "Marsh Girl." But she finds solitude and comfort in the natural world and pursues her fascination about seashells and seabirds.

But not everyone is shunning Kya. The owners of perhaps the only convenient store around, Jumpin' (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt), have been offering some help since Kya was little. Another person who adores Kya is Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith) who truly shares the spirit with Kya, teaches her how to read and write, and falls in love with her. Before Tate leaves for Chapel Hill for college, he promises to return to Kya upon graduation.

As predictable as the plot can be, Tate, the only person Kya keeps her hope up with, ends up not returning. Devastated by yet another abandonment, Kya gives in to a local playboy, Chase Andrews, only to end the relationship badly.

Yet, despite all these misfortunes, Kya still manages to teach herself to draw pictures of seashells and seabirds she observes in the wild, and publishes a few books with her work.

Even though Kya's story is extraordinary by all accounts, the film seems to narrowly focus on her being a victim more than being in control of her life. There should be more stories to tell about her that are left out in the film. Instead, the stories of her being abandoned are presented again and again from childhood to adulthood.

The film never shows how Kya is able to discover her artistic talent to draw vivid figures of what she observes. Where does she get her stationery supplies for her publishing work? It seems all she can get locally from Jumpin' and Mable's store are some very basic items such as grits and gas.

At the end of the film, it needlessly adds a scene of the funeral of Jumpin' to finish off her streak of abandonment—there, one more person in Kya's life departs. Such a life!

"Where the Crawdads Sing" opens on Friday, July 15, 2022.