WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING

 Daisy Edgar Jones     Taylor John Smith     David Strathairn

Michael Hyatt     Sterling Macer, Jr.     Harris Dickinson

            A beautifully rendered film about a remarkable child abandoned by her family and growing up alone in a shack in the marshland of North Carolina.  Isolated from most of the town of Barkley Cove, she is called “the marsh girl” by townspeople who make up all kinds of negative stories about her.  

            There are kindly people who help Kya (Jones), like young Tate (Smith) who is a friend of her brother’s and has seen her in the marshes.  As a teenager he offers to teach her to read.  Also, the black couple, Mabel (Hyatt) and Jumpin (Macer) who own a small grocery seem to understand that she is abandoned and help her in dignified ways.  But most of the people in the town regard her with suspicion and make fun of her.  

            So when swaggering young hotshot Chase Andrews (Dickinson), whom Kya had had a brief affair with turns up dead, Kya becomes the prime suspect in his murder.  

            The film is well paced, leisurely giving a detailed picture of Kya’s family and early life showing how she became so independent and merged with the natural environment surrounding her.  So knowledgeable about birds and the animals she comes to know so well, Kya becomes an illustrator, thanks to the encouragement of her friend Tate, her first love.

            When the tale transitions to the mystery of Chase’s death, the pace quickens and we see more of the cruelty Kya experienced with her family and the keen disappointments she suffers when key people let her down.  Balancing this heartbreak is the kindly retired attorney Tom Milton (Strathairn) who has generously taken on the task of defending her against the murder charge. 

            Big plusses in this maximally engaging film are the acting, the writing, the directing, the music, and the cinematography.  Daisy Edgar Jones, Taylor John Smith, and David Strathairn are captivating in their portrayal of the three lead roles, solidly backed up by Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer, Jr.  Harris Dickinson embodies the less appealing Chase most convincingly.

            The direction by Olivia Newman shows her talent in adapting the popular novel by Delia Owens into a film that captures the audience’s full attention throughout.  The 2+ hour film sped by.  Music by Mychael Danna lives up to his previous award-worthy compositions in Life of Pi, Moneyball, and Little Miss Sunshine.  Although the film is supposed to take place in North Carolina, it was actually filmed in Louisiana, but Polly Morgan’s lush cinematography fools you into thinking it is North Carolina, especially when you see Kya running through the brush hiding from those trying to find her.

            This is a tender and heartstrings-puller love story, an example of female child pluckiness, an absorbing murder mystery and trial, and a commentary of pride and prejudice of the type found in small communities even today.

            It should be noted that Reese Witherspoon is one of the producers.  Release was postponed at one point following an ABC news-magazine show Turning Point and articles in The New Yorker and Atlantic magazines, casting some suspicion on prior activities of the author of the book, Delia Owens and her husband Mark.

 

Go to Where the Crawdads Sing to find a gripping story of valor, discovery, and delight.

 

Grade:  A                              By Donna R. Copeland

NIGHTMARE ALLEY

Rooney Mara     Bradley Cooper     Cate Blanchett     Willem Dafoe     Mary Steenburgen

Toni Collette     Ron Perlman     Tim Blake Nelson     Richard Jenkins     David Strathairn

            It’s a nightmare all right.  It starts out with arson by a shady-looking character, and we follow him as he wanders around and ends up at a circus, where he manages to get hired.  Stan Carlisle (Cooper) is smart and a bit of a charmer, and quickly makes friends with the showrunner (Dafoe) and the fortune teller Pete (Strathairn) and his roommate Zeena (Collette), a reader of Tarot cards.  When he learns fast from Pete and begins to offer tips on improving Molly’s (Mara) electrical act, it becomes clear that he has worked in the circus before, and that he doesn’t mind conning people.

            But like all good sociopaths, he draws viewers into his web and we become fascinated with/question more and more of his actions.  Del Toro’s mastery in weaving stories that develop slowly across time, sustain glued-to-the-screen interest with spikes of anxiety and tension is clearly working in Nightmare Alley.  All the characters have potential to be a story unto themselves, but somehow Del Toro and his team integrate all of them into a coherent whole.  He co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Morgan and William Lindsay Graham who wrote the novel on which it is based.

            The filmmakers make the most of their cast headed up by Bradley Cooper who embodies a corrupt phoenix that keeps rising after destruction.  Conning is his game, and it is only the goons [Molly’s protector Bruno (Perlman), a wealthy stooge’s bodyguard, and a psychologist] who recognize his threat.  This role could be a high mark in his career.  Cate Blanchett as a psychologist caught up in his web is icily intriguing as a gorgeous blonde fellow schemer, and as always cinches her role, which I will take issue with below (the role; not the actress).  Rooney Mara pulls off a rather naïve ingenue who eventually picks up on the straits she is in, in an entirely convincing way.  Toni Collette, David Strathairn, and Richard Jenkins are highlights in their portrayals of quirky characters who gradually become endearing in a strange way.

            I found the production to be very entertaining and living up to the filmmakers’ reputation for making a good horror movie that gets into the psychology of human beings and all the myriad of characters that can and do emerge.  Speaking of psychology, I hope that viewers realize that the psychologist portrayed here committed any number of infractions that would revoke her license, let alone try her for crimes.  But as usual, filmmakers seldom consult with professionals in the profession they are portraying.  I got a chuckle out of Dr. Ritter’s sign:  Dr. Lilith Ritter, Psychologist, Ph.D.  It’s Dr. Ritter who earned the Ph.D., which should come with her name, not tacked on at the end.

            Crafts I especially liked about Nightmare Alley are the production design by Tamara Deverell and the cinematography by Dan Laustsen.  Both contributed so much to the mood and subject of the film.

 

Nightmare Alley has Guillermo del Toro’s mark of provocative storytelling that always includes observations about human nature and ethics.

 

Grade:  B+                            By Donna R. Copeland