A film adaptation of the book of the same name, written several years ago, is a story about a girl whose life was already not sweet but became unbearable after being accused of murdering a man she knew well...
Kia Clarke (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) lived all her life in a cabin in a swamp. The story develops in the middle of the 20th century and covers the period when poor people, in search of a better life, left their homes, abandoned their families, and, trying to get on their feet somewhere else, then planned to move their family there. But it didn't always work out. So Kia lived with her family in a hut and at some point was left alone. What exactly you will learn from the movie? But the fact remains: she had to know all the hardships of life from an early age. She adapted, becoming a kind of modernized version of Mowgli.
It was the fact that in the United States at that time there was a practice of running away from home in search of a better life, the synopsis about the “swamp girl” living all alone did not seem strange to me. I don’t know, somehow it didn’t jar me, although for sure this fact may seem very, very strange to the viewer.
Of all the inhabitants of the town, near which the swamp was located where she lived, Kia has always been an outcast. What in childhood, what later. Accordingly, her attitude toward her was appropriate. And precisely because of this attitude, it was she who became the first to be suspected of the death of a person.
The film intertwines two temporary storylines. One tells about the childhood of the main character and what she had to go through. The second tells just about the period when she is almost 20 years old and she opens her heart to another person. This interweaving makes it possible to evaluate some of the actions of the already matured heroine in order to understand why she acts this way and not otherwise, and what she is guided by. The answers to these questions are in her past: bleak and with minor glimpses of happiness in very short periods of life.
If we talk about genre affiliation, then “Where the crayfish sing” is rather a drama first of all, and only then a detective and a thriller (in that order). There are many more tearful, romantic, and loving moments here than the same trial, for example, or the circumstances of the death of one of the characters. All this is secondary because it is the difficult life of the girl that comes to the fore.
In this regard, a little over two hours of running time may seem quite long (a couple of times I slipped such an idea while watching). But at the same time, the film recounts the entire history of the heroine in detail, focuses on the details surrounding her, talks in detail about her life, and introduces magnificent nature (yes, yes, it’s beautiful in the swamps too!), which undoubtedly goes to the film as a plus.
Sharma also adds David Strathairn, who plays a lawyer here. In general, with his presentation of heroes in the frame, I even wondered how he could play a tough and determined CIA operative in films about Jason Bourne. The actor perfectly fits into the image of a kind uncle-lawyer - compassionate and willing to establish the truth.
Daisy Edgar-Jones (Kia at age 19) and Joe Regina (Kia as a child) also played well - they were very convincing, and I liked Regina even more. It is possible that an innocent face, and deep penetrating eyes, which very easily portrayed melancholy, played their role ... But Edgar-Jones turned out to be good too. She managed to become not fully socialized, still wild, but on the whole a bright and intelligent girl.
Despite the fact that "Where the Crayfish Sing" reaches its culmination in the courtroom, the final scenes also present the viewer with a shocking surprise, which immediately puts everything in its place and gives an answer to the main question. You know, it's like a snap of your fingers - "ONE!" and the clouds parted and the sun shone in the sky. In nature, this cannot be so, but on installation, yes. And this is exactly the case: a click and everything is clear to you ...
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