Movies |
What would you watch first: “Where the Crawdads Sing” or “Winter’s Bone?”
By
Published: Jul 17, 2022
Category:
Drama
“Where the Crawdads Sing” opened in a bazillion theaters. I haven’t seen it, and don’t intend to. The novel has sold 12 million copies. I haven’t read it, and I don’t intend to. But I have some thoughts, and you’ll please excuse me if I run my ignorant mouth here.
As I was scrolling though Facebook, I chanced upon this review by Joyce Hackett:
Last night I saw the “Crawdads” movie. Which was a mistake. Which I knew beforehand – my partner wanted to go to the movies. But one fun element was that this girl who has lived alone in the marsh since she was about 8, gathering oysters from the muck to trade for food, has perfect fingernails. And a clothes budget that enables her to wear a new lacy feminine frock in every scene. Including, a beautiful apricot tutu dress, its silk bodice perfectly tailored to her thin body, with tiny straps, with tiny bows on the straps. In which she sadly stares out at the sea, watching the Fourth of July fireworks, waiting for the boyfriend who has promised to come back on the 4th, from UNC Chapel Hill. Which, for those of you with fuzzy geography, is inland. She cries on the beach. Then she sleeps on the beach. Then she cries some more.
Did you know that in the steamy marshes of NC, there are no bugs? You can walk around barefoot, in diaphanous nightgowns. And you can buy perfectly tailored Dior dresses at the grocery run by the kindly and portly Black couple.
The only thing good about seeing this movie is being able to warn you off.
Reading this, I had one thought: “This is ‘Queens Gambit 2.’”
In the novel of Queen’s Gambit, the girl is plain, lonely, unloved and unlovable. She has one skill — she’s a chess genius — but it won’t get her all the way to a championship until she learns to accept and give love. And she is transformed by that love.
Reviewers have noticed how airbrushed the girl is in “Crawdads,” and they haven’t been kind:
Salon: “This stupefyingly bad big screen adaptation plays out as if Nicholas Sparks rewrote ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and took out all the racial elements.”
The NY Times: “‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ takes place in the ’50s and ’60s, which on the evidence of the film were uneventful decades in America, especially the American South.. 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.”
RogerEbert.com: “It’s sorely lacking in actual substance or suspense… loaded with plot that it ends up feeling superficial, rendering major revelations as rushed afterthoughts. For a film about a brave woman who’s grown up in the wild, living by her own rules, it’s unusually tepid and restrained.”
“Crawdads” opened big this week. In, part, that’s because reviews don’t matter to l) readers who adored the book and 2) Reese Witherspoon produced the movie and hyped it and 3) Taylor Swift contributed a song. But even more, look at the demographic of the first weekend’s audience:
Fifty-five percent of Crawdads‘ ticket buyers are women over 25. The overall audience was 40% between 18-34, but still an amazing 41% over 45. Box office firm EntTelligence shows that 8% of the audience came after 8PM to see Crawdads, indicating how older-leaning the pic is. Diversity demos were 71% Caucasian, 17% Latino and Hispanic, 4% Black, & 8% Asian/other.
In short: the audience for “Crawdads” is white, older, women.
Here’s the trailer for “Crawdads.”
And here’s a trailer for another film, “Winter’s Bone.” Watch it here.
“Winter’s Bone” was made for $2 million. It grossed only $13 million. It launched Jennifer Lawrence, who was justifiably nominated for an Academy Award.
“Winter’s Bone” could not be grittier. Set in the bleak Ozarks of Missouri, we find ourselves among the rural poor: cramped trailers, plastic stretched over the windows in winter, not a Volvo in sight. And the Dollys are among the most wretched.
Ree’s father, Jessup Dolly, was busted a while back for cooking meth. To make bond, he put up his family’s house and 300 acres of virgin timber. Now his court date is a week away — and he’s nowhere to be found. The local lawman comes out to warn Ree that the Dollys are in danger of losing their home.
Ree’s mother has suffered a breakdown and is of no help, either in caring for her children or finding her husband. Which makes 17-year-old Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) responsible for her young sister and brother — and for tracking her father down.
For my rave review, click here. To stream the movie on Amazon Prime, click here.]
For a double feature of movies directed by Debra Granik, roll on the father-and-daughter in “Leave No Trace.” Granik, once again, tells a powerful story about outsiders. Here’s the trailer. To stream the film from Amazon Prime, click here.
My point: No one I know can live on an unchanging diet of leafy vegetables and mint tea. And I can’t fault anyone for going to a theater and zoning out in air-conditioning for two hours with a bag of fake-buttered popcorn and a Dr. Pepper. But maybe you can do both. Maybe you can fantasize about a beautiful girl in an airbrushed South and a girl who has nothing going for her except guts. Maybe that’s a balanced diet.
