Where the Crawdads Sing

"For a story about sex, murder, family secrets and class resentments, the temperature is awfully mild, as if a Tennessee Williams play had been sent to Nicholas Sparks for a rewrite."

"A lot of this gutless, often silly, film’s issues are the book’s, beautifully realised and thus reified..."

"Newman’s film gets enough right to be just as solid as a summer cinematic distraction as Owens’ book was as beachside literature."

"(Edgar-Jones is) in a league of her own. She’s better than everyone around her. And she’s certainly better than this muddled effort."

"Where the Crawdads Sing works best when it embraces its own true nature as a popcorn movie."

"The film is a self-serious, but consciously aesthetically pleasing, adaptation of a, frankly, silly soap opera."

"It feels exceedingly rushed, as the actors hit their marks and deliver their monologues with a sense of obligation to moving the plot along rather than developing character."

"Newman’s work adapting (the book) makes its derivative elements as obvious as a bad accent, but its chart-topping, tone-deaf mediocrity is faithfully replicated."

"A mystery so messy not even Taylor Swift can save it."

"Newman’s clunky and programmatic film never conjures up much of a mood."

"Compelling..."

"The film tends toward cliche, packed with underdeveloped performances and unearned plot twists."

"Where the Crawdads Sing is a weirdly uncomfortable movie, on many different levels."

"Kya’s beauty and delicateness are so over-emphasized that she comes off more manic pixie dream girl than misanthropic protagonist."