WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING: 2 ½ STARS
In this image provided by Sony Pictures, Taylor John Smith, left, and Daisy Edgar-Jones in a scene from “Where the Crabs Sing.” (Michele K. Short/Sony Pictures via AP)
“Where the Crawdads Sing,” the Reese Witherspoon-produced film based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Delia Owens and now playing in theaters, is a bildungsroman. That may sound like the name of a frantic Hobbit wedding dance or sweet Klingon dessert, but it’s really just a fancy word for a study of a person’s formative years or spiritual upbringing. Filled with themes of abandonment, loneliness, and ultimately independence, the film is a unique coming-of-age story that covers spiritual growth and more earthly concerns.
Set in and around the small North Carolina town of Barkley Cove, the story centers on Kya, played by Daisy Edgar-Jones. Abandoned as a child (played by Jojo Regina when she was young), she grew up in the nearby coastal swamps. Nicknamed “the swamp girl” by the locals, she is almost completely isolated. With no formal education, she learns to survive by observing the wildlife of the swamp.
Tough and smart, he says, “The swamp taught me how to survive, but it didn’t teach me everything.”
When her head is turned by two young men from the city, the kind Tate (Taylor John Smith) and the chauvinistic football star Chase (Harris Dickinson), she enters an unknown world. Eyed suspiciously, mocked and harassed, her life takes a terrible turn when Chase is found dead. Accused of murder and facing the death penalty, Kya must use all her experience to resist.
“Even though everything tries to trample on it, life persists,” she says. “Where out there, where the locusts sing, the swamp knows one thing above all others: every creature does what it must to survive.”
“Where the Crawdads Sing” is many things. It’s a love triangle, a murder mystery, a coming-of-age story, and yet none of it really sticks. What could have been a steamy southern gothic, full of sex and death, is instead a sleepy-paced melodrama that fails to deliver on the premise of female empowerment promised by the film’s scheming lead character.
Kya could have been an electric, self-taught character, persevering against overwhelming odds (abuse, heartbreak, and abandonment) to flourish spiritually. Edgar-Jones conveys some of that through his wide-eyed performance, and his intelligence is obvious, but the toughness necessary for Kya to survive and thrive is lacking.
Without a stimulating main character, the heart and soul of “Where the Crawdads Sing” is lost, leaving behind intrigue and melodrama.
MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS: 3 STARS
This image released by Focus Features shows Lesley Manville in a scene from “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris.” (Liam Daniel/Focus Features via AP)
I tend to avoid movies with titles that rhyme. For every “Be Kind Rewind” or “Chop Shop” I liked, there’s a “From Prada to Nada” or “Good Luck Chuck” to remind me that sometimes a rhyme equals dirt.
OK, that was silly, but you get the idea.
Cute titles are often the first warning sign of things to come. The new movie, “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” commits the sin of the name game, but Academy Award nominee Lesley Manville brings the poetry to the film.
Set in 1957, Manville plays Ada Harris, an optimistic London house cleaner. “Today is my lucky day,” she says. A self-styled “invisible woman,” she is also a dreamer, a person who clings to the belief that her husband Eddie will finally come home from the war and that there is always something better just around the corner.
Only one of those things is true.
When Eddie is officially declared dead in action, she is devastated but stoic. “I should have known he would have contacted me if he could have,” she said, fighting back tears. “Well, free and fantasy free.”
When he sees a beautiful Dior haute couture dress belonging to one of his aristocratic clients, it’s an epiphany. Although the dress costs twice what she earns a year, her goal is to visit 30 Avenue Montaigne, Christian Dior’s eponymous boutique in Paris, and treat herself to buying a dress.
Through a series of unlikely coincidences, Mrs. Harris raises enough money to get to the City of Lights, pay cash for the dress and fulfill her dream, but how will she do it, as the snobby house manager asks. Dior, Claudine Colbert (Isabelle Huppert), “Give the dress the life it deserves?”
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is the kind of feel-good movie that seems to have been written by an algorithm. Of course, it’s based on the 1958 novel “Mrs. Arris Goes to Paris” by Paul Gallico, which more It was later made into a TV movie of the same name starring Angela Lansbury, Diana Rigg and Omar Sharif, but it seems a bot was asked, “What makes people feel so cute? ?”
How about some old-school British slang, some romance, the Eiffel Tower, sparkly dresses, some class warfare, and even a bit of existentialism? Nothing like a movie about aspirations with a Jean-Paul Sartre side.
The philosopher’s name is used as a prop to illustrate the intellectual prowess of French love interests (Alba Baptista and Lucas Bravo), but Ms. Harris seems to take Sartre’s ideas seriously.
When Sartre said, “Life begins on the other side of despair,” it is possible that he was referring to the rebirth of Mrs. Harris after she learned that Eddie would not return to her. Sartre’s observation, “We are our choices,” applies to the title character’s indomitable spirit and his determination to find beauty in her world, no matter how frivolous. While the film reduces existentialist theories to pop psychology, Manville’s winning performance provides an escape to a more glamorous time (even if it takes place in Paris during a garbage strike).
“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” is predictable and overly long, but Manville brings the heart and soul.
HALLELUJAH: LEONARD COHEN, A JOURNEY, A SONG: 3 ½ STARS
In this image provided by Sony Pictures Classics, Leonard Cohen, star of the documentary “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, a Journey, a Song.” (Courtesy of the Cohen Estate/Sony Pictures Classics via AP)
Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen’s haunting anthem of desire, spirituality, and mystery of life, took seven years to write. Started when Jimmy Carter was the American president, the song was not released until Ronald Reagan was in his second term.
How does that compare to other songwriters? In a famous story, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen are having lunch. “I really like ‘Hallelujah,’” Dylan said. “How long did it take you to write that?”
“Seven years,” was the reply.
Returning the compliment, Cohen said, “I really like ‘I and I,'” a tune from Dylan’s “Infidels” album. “How long did it take you to write that?”
“About 15 minutes,” Dylan said.
“I always thought I sweated over this stuff,” says Cohen in “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song,” a new documentary now playing in theaters, “but I had no idea what it meant to sweat over this stuff.” until I found myself in a shabby hotel room trying to finish ‘Hallelujah’ and not being able to finish it.”
The new documentary expands beyond Cohen’s seven years of endless lyrical scribbles, to rehearse what he calls, “My curious career and fringe presence on the fringes of the music scene.”
Directed and edited by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine, the film brings together new interviews with the singer’s old friends, archive footage, musical performances and photography. He paints a portrait of a spiritual seeker, a poet on an endless search for meaning through the ups and downs of his career.
One of the drawbacks was the release of “Various Positions”, the album that contained the original version of “Hallelujah”. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, but at the time the album was rejected by
Walter Yetnikoff, director of Columbia. Refusing to release it nationally, Yetnikoff kissed Cohen goodbye in show business. “Leonard, we know you’re great. But we don’t know if you’re good.
The album and song languished, ignored and virtually unheard, until John Cale revived the tune for a tribute album called “I’m Your Fan”. Revamping the arrangement and incorporating several of Cohen’s unused verses, the song eventually caught the attention of the public, including folk-rock singer Jeff Buckley. His version (based on Cale’s performance) would go on to be named one of Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and is probably the best known in a field that includes covers by everyone from Rufus Wainwright and kd lang, to Pentatonix and willie nelson “It’s a great song,” said Buckley. “I wish I had written it.”
Oddly enough, it was a sequence in Mike Myers’ animated film “Shrek,” arranged by Cale, that gave the tune a whole new energy for a younger audience. Eventually, the “clean” version of “Shrek” would become a staple of the “American Idol” and “X-Factor” talent shows, re-entering the charts multiple times. At one point it held the top two spots on the UK charts at the same time, while Cohen’s 1984 was in the Top 40, a fact that amused Cohen. “It was an ironic sidebar because the record it came from wasn’t considered good enough for the US market,” he says in the film. “There is a certain sense of revenge that arose in my heart.”
Cohen fans may not learn much they don’t already know in “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song.” But, from music to meditation, from poetry to prayer, he remains, even in the broadest biographical lines, a fascinating character.
As for the song? Cohen says he’s happy about its success, but says, “I think people should stop singing it for a while.”