Daisy Edgar-Jones Archives

Review: ‘On Swift Horses,’ starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jacob Elodri, Will Poulter, Diego Calva and Sasha Calle

April 23, 2025

by Carla Hay

Will Poulter, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Jacob Elordi in “On Swift Horses” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

Directed by Daniel Minahan

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1956 to 1957, in California and in Nevada, the dramatic film “On Swift Horses” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A bored and unhappy wife pines over her bisexual/queer brother-in-law, while she starts a secret affair with a female neighbor.

Culture Audience: “On Swift Horses” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and the book on which the movie is based, and are interested in dramas about queer relationships in the 1950s.

Jacob Elordi and Diego Calva in “On Swift Horses” (Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

Even with a talented cast, “On Swift Horses” is a superficial drama about five people who have sexual entanglements based mostly on infatuation. The movie is adapted from a novel but seems more inspired by pretty postcards with vapid thoughts. “On Swift Horses” tries but fails to convince that any of the main characters are experiencing true love. The lover who is the most “sought-after” in the story is actually selfish and unreliable and is considered attractive mostly because of his physical appearance.

Directed by Daniel Minahan and written by Bryce Kass, “On Swift Horses” is based on Shannon Pufahl’s debut 2019 novel of the same name. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and its U.S. premiere at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival. “On Swift Horses” takes place from 1956 to 1957, in California and in Nevada, with filming taking place in California. The nearly two-hour run time of “On Swift Horses” suggests that it could have been a sweeping and engaging epic romantic film. Instead, it’s mostly plodding and dull, with contrived-looking sex scenes that fizzle more than sizzle.

“On Swift Horses” begins with one of these sex scenes by showing military man Lee Walker (played by Will Poulter) having sex with his girlfriend Muriel (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones) at the Kansas house that Muriel inherited from her deceased mother. It’s obvious that Muriel isn’t really enjoying the sex. She seems to be going through the motions out of obligation. Lee is on leave from military service in the Korean War and has to go back in three days. He asks Muriel to marry him. She says no.

Muriel certainly perks up when she meets Lee’s younger brother Julius (played by Jacob Elordi), a handsome rebel who’s got “heartbreaker” written all over him. As soon as Julius comes to visit, and he meets Muriel for the first time, it’s obvious that Muriel is much more interested in Julius than she is in Lee. (The “meet cute” moment between Julius and Muriel happens he asks her to toss him a cigarette.) Julius and Muriel slow dance in front of Lee, who seems oblivious or in denial about the mutual attraction between Muriel and Julius.

That’s all you need to know about what type of person that Muriel is: She has no qualms about possibly causing a rift between two brothers for her own self-centered reasons. Julius is even more selfish than Muriel. “On Swift Horses” has an annoying way of treating these two toxic people as star-crossed “unlucky in love” lovers whom viewers are supposed to root for, when anyone with enough life experience can see how much emotional damage that Muriel and Julius cause and how Muriel and Julius don’t deserve admiration.

During Julius’ visit with Lee and Muriel, it’s mentioned that Julius also served in the military during the Korean War, but he has been discharged. Julius is queer or bisexual. Lee has known for years that Julius is not heterosexual, but Lee and no one else in the movie say the words “queer,” “gay” or “bisexual” out loud. People who are not heterosexual in the movie are just politely called “different.” It’s a very unrealistic portrayal of how queerness was described in 1950s America, when hateful homophobia was not only openly expressed but it was also legal.

Julius’ sexual attraction to men is probably why Lee doesn’t see Julius as a threat to Lee’s relationship with Muriel. In his ignorance, Lee probably thinks Julius is gay, not bisexual. Lee (who is socially rigid but an overall good guy) is the only person of the movie’s five main characters who shows unconditional love to his partner, even though that love is wasted on someone who doesn’t love him and doesn’t hesitate to cheat on him.

The insipid dialogue starts to pollute the movie within the first 10 minutes. In a scene during Julius’ visit of Lee and Muriel, the three of them play poker. Julius says, “The thing about cards is poker isn’t just poker.” Before he serves the deck of cards, Julius babbles some more nonsense by saying that a card is a symbol of time.

Muriel looks at Julius as if he’s a poker philosopher extraordinaire. But her fantasy about him sweeping her off of her feet comes crashing back down to reality when it becomes obvious that Julius is a drifter who has no intention of settling down in a committed relationship. Sometime after the poker game, Lee proposes marriage again to Muriel while Julius is in the same room. This time, Muriel says yes.

If Julius is jealous, he doesn’t show it. Lee wants to settle down with Muriel and buy a house in Arroyo Canyon in California. In order to get the money to buy a house, Lee asks Muriel to sell her childhood house in Kansas. Muriel is reluctant to sell the house because the house is the last connection she has to her family.

“On Swift Horses'” then abruptly switches to showing Lee and Muriel as a married couple living in California. Muriel has been writing letters to Julius and asking him to come back to California. Not long after Lee finishes his military service, he and Muriel decide to move to San Diego. Lee becomes a factory worker. Muriel works as a waitress at a diner.

The newlyweds are financially struggling and get tired of living in cramped living quarters. And so, Muriel changes her mind about selling her childhood Kansas home. Lee and Muriel use the money from the sale to buy the middle-class home that they want. Muriel secretly keeps some of the leftover money from the sale in a hiding place in the home. She later hides some other cash that she gets from betting on horse races without Lee’s knowledge.

Muriel acts bi-curious when she spends some time at Del Mar Racing (a horse racetrack), after she has overheard some horse-betting tips from customers at the diner. Muriel ends up winning money from horse-race bets and notices that a woman named Gail (played by Kat Cunning) is flirting with her at the racetrack. Muriel is somewhat surprised by this attention but she doesn’t reject it. Gail (a socialite who’s married to a much-older, wealthy man) is a frequent customer at a local lesbian bar, which is where Muriel goes out of curiosity and to see how far things might go between her and Gail.

Julius tells Muriel in letter correspondence that he’s moving to the California city of Stockton, which is about 460 miles northeast of San Diego. Even with this long distance, that’s all Muriel needs to hear to get excited that Julius could be in her life. Julius asks her for money for this relocation. She sends the money to Julius, but he uses the money to move to Las Vegas instead. Muriel is hurt when she finds out that Julius told Lee that it was good that Lee married Muriel because “that sad girl needs somebody to tell her what to do.”

“On Swift Horses” then meanders along as it shows what Julius did when he was in Las Vegas. He ends up meeting Henry (played by Diego Calva), another drifter/hustler type, on Julius’ first day of his job as a security worker at a casino. Julius and Henry are co-workers whose job is to hide in a secret room overlooking the casino floor and look out for any gamblers who are cheating during card games. Julius and Henry then have to report any cheaters to the casino’s security bouncers, who rough up and throw out the cheaters.

Henry flirts with Julius and immediately figures out that Julius is attracted to him. Henry makes the first move when he and Julius become lovers. It’s hard to believe that Henry and Julius (who are both self-absorbed and opportunistic) are really in love because their relationship is based mostly on lust and convenience. Henry and Julius eventually decide to become con artists together by going to other casinos and cheating at card games in the same ways that they’ve seen other cheaters have done it.

Meanwhile, Muriel (who’s still pining over Julius but she doesn’t want to admit it) meets androgynous Sandra (played by Sasha Calle) when Muriel and Lee decide to move to the San Fernando Valley and look for houses there. Sandra has a mini-farm on her property and sells things like olives and eggs. Sandra’s house, which has been in her family for 60 years, is near the house that Lee and Muriel end up buying.

The first time that Muriel and Sandra meet, there’s sexual tension between them and very unsubtle homoerotic subtexts. Sandra tells Muriel to taste some of her olives. When Muriel does and spits out one of the olive pits, Sandra holds out her hand and expects Muriel to spit the olive pit onto Sandra’s hand. You know where all of this is going to lead, of course.

The relationship with Muriel and Sandra is described as “love” in the marketing materials for “On Swift Horses,” but it sure doesn’t look like mutual love. Sandra is the one who seems to be falling in love with Muriel, but Muriel acts like Sandra is a just a fling and tells Sandra that their affair is just about having sexual fun. If this sounds like spoiler information, it’s only to let viewers know that there really is no great love affair in this disappointing and torpid movie, which pulls an irritating bait and switch in many ways.

Worst of all, “On Swift Horses” awkwardly fumbles the movie’s last 15 minutes, turning the film into an unrealistic mushfest where two people desperately look for Julius at the same time—as if disrespectful fraudster Julius is the answer to their problems and unhappiness. Edgar-Jones and Calle do their best to try to give their respective characters some depth in “On Swift Horses,” but they can’t overcome the maudlin screenplay that reduces potential romances to scenes of insecure people using each other for sexual companionship. The other principal cast members are even more stymied by portraying characters with cardboard personalities. And ironically, this movie with the word “swift” in the title has slow and drab pacing. By the time “On Swift Horses” lumbers along to its corny and vague ending, you probably won’t care about seeing these characters ever again.

Sony Pictures Classics will release “On Swift Horses” in U.S. cinemas on April 25, 2025. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on April 14, 2025.

Review: ‘Twisters’ (2024), starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Glen Powell and Anthony Ramos

July 18, 2024

by Carla Hay

Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos and Glen Powell in “Twisters” (Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

“Twisters” (2024)

Directed by Lee Isaac Chung

Culture Representation: Taking place in Oklahoma and briefly in New York City, the action film “Twisters” ( a continuation of the franchise that started with 1996’s “Twister”) features a racially diverse cast of characters (white, Latin, African American and Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A meteorologist, who feels guilty over the death of her three close friends in a tornado five years before, is persuaded to temporarily join a group of scientific tornado chasers, who are competing against a non-scientific group of YouTube tornado chasers.

Culture Audience: “Twisters” will appeal primarily to people are fans of the 1996 “Twister” movie and similar movies about weather disasters.

Glen Powell and Daisy Edgar-Jones in “Twisters” (Photo by Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

“Twisters” is not as suspenseful as 1996’s “Twister,” but “Twisters” still has plenty of action thrills in this franchise story about tornado chasers. The characters’ relationships are predictable but elevated by believable chemistry and good acting. As expected, “Twisters” has better visual effects than “Twister,” but the pacing of “Twisters” somewhat drags in the middle of the movie. Overall, it’s a crowd-pleasing film that does what is advertised.

Directed by Lee Isaac Chung and written by Mark L. Smith, “Twisters” has an entirely new set of cast members from “Twister,” but there are similarities between the two movies. Both movies have the tornadoes taking place in Oklahoma. Both movies feature storylines of “corporate-sponsored” tornado chasers versus “scrappy independent” tornado chasers.

Both movies have bickering between the leading male character and the leading female character because they’re in a power struggle, and they both want to deny an attraction that exists between them. The woman in this would-be couple is the more intellectual scientist, while the man is the less-educated by equally passionate tornado chaser. One of them has tremendous guilt over the tornado death of at least one person close to them. In both movies, the storm-chasing team that aims to find a way to diffuse tornadoes does so by using equipment with names inspired by characters in “The Wizard of Oz.”

“Twister” (directed by Jan de Bont and written by Michael Crichton and Anne-Marie Martin) had Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton starring as divorcing couple Dr. Jo Harding and meteorologist Bill Harding, who unexpectedly get thrown back together into tornado chasing, after Bill says he has retired from tornado chasing. They try to put a stop to high-level tornadoes.

Jo is motivated to be a tornado chaser because she witnessed her farmer father die in a tornado when she was about 5 or 6 years old. Bill visits Jo in Oklahoma because he wants her to sign their divorce papers. Bill has brought his fiancée Dr. Melissa Reeves (played by Jami Gertz), a psychotherapist, along for this trip. Jo and her tornado-chasing team use equipment that they call Dorothy.

“Twisters” updates the franchise by having a racially diverse cast, compared to the all-white cast of “Twister.” Another 21st century update to “Twisters” is YouTube is a big part of the plot because one of the rival tornado-chasing groups has a YouTube channel where the group does many livestreams. “Twisters” also makes more of an effort to show the tornado chasers helping strangers who are tornado victims after a tornado has turned a community into a disaster area. In “Twister,” the tornado chasers were definitely more self-absorbed and more willfully oblivious to helping communities recover from tornado disasters.

“Twisters” begins in an unnamed city in Oklahoma, the U.S. state where the movie was filmed on location. A group of tornado chasers, led by Ph.D. candidate Kate Carter (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones), is chasing a tornado as part of an experiment to see if the scientific powder and data sensory devices and they’ve created will diffuse and track the tornado. They use equipment that they call Dorothy, which is a nod to the first “Twister” movie. The plan is to open barrels of the powders and data sensory devices in the eye of a tornado.

Kate calls this experiment the Tornado Tamer Project, which is part of her Ph.D. thesis about disrupting tornado dynamics. If Kate’s theory works, she hopes that she can get grant funding for the Tornado Tamer Project. The other young people in the group are Kate’s loving and supportive boyfriend Jeb (played by Daryl McCormack) and their close friends Javier “Javi” Rivera (played by Anthony Ramos), who is energetic and opinionated; Addy (played by Kiernan Shipka), who is perky and sweet-natured; and Praveen (played by Nik Dodani), who is thoughtful and nerdy.

It’s mentioned several times in “Twisters” that Kate has an uncanny ability to predict which are the most dangerous tornadoes to follow. It’s an instinct that her farmer mother Cathy Carter (played by Maura Tierney), who’s shown later in the movie, says Kate has had since Kate was a little girl. Kate is an only child who was raised by her single mother. Kate’s father is not seen or mentioned in the movie, although one of Kate’s friends calls Cathy “Mrs. Carter.” She welcomes Kate’s friends into her home and likes to cook meals for them.

In the beginning of “Twisters,” Kate and her Tornado Tamer crew are chasing a tornado where they plan to do their experiment. Unfortunately, Kate miscalculated about what level the tornado was: It turns out to be F5 (highest level of destruction) tornado. Kate, Jeb, Addy and Praveen are all in the same vehicle and are caught right in the middle of the tornado. They escape from the car, but Kate is the only one of the four to survive. Javi was in a safer area in a separate vehicle, so he also survived.

Five years later, Kate is now working as a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in New York City. Through conversations in the movie, it’s revealed that after the tornado tragedy, Kate dropped out of her Ph.D. program and gave up on tornado chasing. At this point in her life, Kate has also been avoiding her mother’s phone calls and has rarely visited Oklahoma since moving away.

One day, Kate gets an unexpected visitor at her office: Javi, who tells her that he also moved away from Oklahoma after the tragedy. Javi says that after he graduated from their university program, he went back to his hometown of Miami and enlisted in the military. He also tells Kate that while he was in the military, he worked with portable radars that detect missiles. Javi has access to the prototypes and says they can use these radars for tornadoes, to make three points in the shape of a 3-D type of triangle. Later, it’s revealed that these radars are called Tin Man, Scarecrow and Lion, and their power control center is called Wizard.

Kate turns down Javi’s offer to work with him. Javi is persistent though. Later, he calls Kate and tells her that he’s put together a great team of scientists called Storm Par to help him. Storm Par also has corporate sponsorship for funding. Kate is persuaded to help Storm Par because of Javi’s radar idea and because Oklahoma is having an outbreak of tornadoes. However, Kate tells Javi that she will only work with Storm Par for one week.

One of the flaws of 1996’s “Twister” is that it never explained why so many tornadoes were happening in such a short period of time. “Twisters” avoids that flaw by repeatedly showing flashes of TV news reports saying that Oklahoma is having a “once in a generation” outbreak of tornadoes. In “Twisters,” the tornadoes arrive with little to no warning. If there is any warning, it could be as short as two or three minutes.

Soon after arriving in Oklahoma, an emotionally guarded Kate and the Storm Par team encounter a scrappy group of tornado-chasing YouTubers from Arkansas. The leader of the group calls himself a “tornado wrangler.” The group is led by cocky and frequently smirking Tyler Owens (played by Glen Powell), who is the star of this YouTube channel, which has about 1 million subscribers. Tyler’s tornado-chasing motto is: “If you feel it, chase it.” Like many YouTube content creators, Tyler sells a lot of branded merchandise.

Tyler is the only person in his group with experience as a meteorologist. (He also mentions later that he used to be a rodeo rider, as if the movie wants to prove that Tyler has cowboy credentials too.) The other people in Tyler’s group are camera operator Boone (played by Brandon Perea), a scruffy sidekick who does a lot of whooping and hollering; middle-aged Dexter (played by Tunde Adebimpe), who talks like a science nerd, even if he doesn’t have a college degree; Lily (played by Sasha Lane), a friendly hippie; and Dani (played by Katy O’Brian), an androgynous person who likes to hawk a lot of the group’s merchandise.

Tyler and his group loudly ride around and like to do daredevil things for their YouTube channel, such as set off fireworks in tornadoes. The Tornado Wranglers are being accompanied by a London-based reporter named Ben (played by Harry Hadden-Paton), who is doing an article about storm chasers. Ben, who is bespectacled and often nervous, is the token “buttoned-up” person who feels out of place and does the most screaming in fear as a passenger during these tornado-chasing runs. Dr. Melissa Reeves had that role in the 1996 “Twister” movie.

Besides Javi, the only Storm Par member whose personality is shown in “Twisters” is a frequently scowling or pouting colleague named Scott (played by David Corenswet), a scientist snob. Scott’s uncle Marshall Riggs (played by David Born) is the property developer mogul who is Storm Par’s chief investor. You can easily predict why Marshall would be interested in swooping in on victims of tornado disasters who lost their homes. Scott, who shows hints of sexism, is jealous/mistrustful of Kate.

Just like in “Twister,” the two rival groups of tornado chasers in “Twisters” compete to see who can get to the most dangerous tornadoes first. In “Twister,” the rival group to Jo’s independent group is a corporate-sponsored group led by sneering jerk named Dr. Jonas Miller (played by Cary Elwes), who is such an obvious villain, if he had a moustache, he would’ve twirled it. In “Twister,” Jo has the “underdog” group, which includes a wacky stoner named Dustin Davis (played by scene-stealing Philip Seymour Hoffman). In “Twisters,” Tyler’s group is the “underdog” group.

In “Twisters,” there is no love triangle, although there are hints that Javi is attracted to Kate, but he knows he has no chance of dating her because she sees him only as a platonic friend. The same can’t be said for Tyler. The back-and-forth sniping between Kate and Tyler is the type we’ve seen in many other movies where two people meet under competitive circumstances, they annoy each other with insults, but you know they’re really attracted to each other. After a while, Tyler makes his romantic intentions obvious, but Kate is the one who plays hard to get.

Because of advances in technology, the visual effects in “Twisters” are superior to what’s seen in “Twister.” Oddly though, “Twisters” does not show any signs that animals get killed in these tornadoes. In “Twister,” there’s a memorable scene where Jo and Bill see a cow caught up in the tornado. Maybe the “Twisters” filmmakers avoided showing animals getting swept up in tornadoes because they didn’t want animal rights activists to be offended.

As for the would-be romance, the circumstances are different in “Twister” and “Twisters.” “Twister” is about a couple with a marriage history together, and now a third person is involved. That’s in contrast to “Twisters,” which has a would-be couple who haven’t really begun dating each other. The relationships in “Twister” are more interesting to watch than the relationships in “Twisters.”

After the tornado tragedy happens in the beginning of “Twisters,” Kate is emotionally disconnected from almost everyone for most of the story, until she starts to warm up a little and show her vulnerabilities. Tyler is a stereotype of an overconfident heartthrob, but Powell brings undeniable charisma to this character. Edgar-Jones and Ramos also do quite well in their roles. “Twisters” could have told or showed more personal information about the other people in Tyler’s group. The movie never reveals what motivated these other members to become tornado chasers.

As it stands, “Twisters” capably handles what can be expected from movies about weather disasters, even if some of the scenes (just like in “Twister”) look unrealistic in how people are able to survive situations that would kill people in real life. The scientific aspects of the “Twisters” story are simplified so that the average non-scientist can understand. It’s obvious from the way that “Twisters” ends, many of these characters will be seen again in another movie in the franchise.

Universal Pictures will release “Twisters” in U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024. A sneak preview of the movie was shown in U.S. cinemas on July 17, 2024.

Review: ‘Where the Crawdads Sing,’ starring Daisy Edgar-Jones

July 12, 2022

by Carla Hay

“Where the Crawdads Sing”

Directed by Olivia Newman

Culture Representation: Taking place in North Carolina, from 1952 to the early 2020s, the dramatic film “Where the Crawdads Sing” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: In 1970, a 24-year-old woman goes on trial for murdering her ex-boyfriend, and her past as a poor and abandoned child is used against her in the trial.

Culture Audience: “Where the Crawdads Sing” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based, as well as to people who are interested in stories about how people of different social classes are treated in society.

Taylor John Smith and Daisy Edgar-Jones in “Where the Crawdads Sing” (Photo by Michele K. Short/Columbia Pictures)

“Where the Crawdads Sing” has a lot of timeline jumping that will either annoy or intrigue viewers. The movie (which starts off very slow) gets better as it goes along and is elevated by a distinctive lead performance by Daisy Edgar-Jones. Fans of Delia Owens’ 2018 novel “Where the Crawdads Sing” should be satisfied with this cinematic adaptation, while other people who haven’t read the book might have more mixed reactions.

Directed by Olivia Newman and written by Lucy Alibar, the movie “Where the Crawdads Sing” takes on the challenge of telling a story that spans several decades. Just like in the book, the movie takes place in North Carolina. (The movie was actually filmed in New Orleans.) However, the timelines in the book and movie are slightly different. In the book, the timeline goes from 1952 to 2010, whereas the movie’s timeline goes from 1952 to the early 2020s.

The beginning of the film has some editing that might confuse some viewers. The opening scene takes place in the fictional coastal town of Barkley Cove, North Carolina, on the morning of October 30, 1969. Two boys riding their bicycles near a swamp have discovered the body of Chase Andrews (played by Harris Dickinson) underneath a fire tower. At the time of his death, Chase was in his mid-20s and a manager at a local auto dealership.

A medical examination shows that Chase banged his head from falling down the tower, and this head injury was fatal. However, police investigators have found no fingerprints nearby on the tower. And so, they’ve come the conclusion that Chase’s death was not an accident or suicide, and that whoever murdered him covered up the crime by wiping away fingerprints and getting rid of other evidence.

The movie then abruptly cuts to 23-year-old Kya Clark (played by Edgar-Jones) being chased down by law enforcement and put in jail. Inexplicably, a cat gets into her jail cell, and Kya cuddles with the cat for the night until the cat is taken away from her. Kya’s arrest for Chase’s murder is the talk of the town. Kya has a reputation for being a mysterious loner. And because she grew up poor, some people automatically think she’s trashy.

The evidence against Kya is very circumstantial. Kya does not have an alibi during the time frame (midnight to 2 a.m.) that investigators estimate was when Chase died on October 30, 1969. Not long before Chase died, he and Kya were seen having a fight outside that got violent. A witness saw Kya threaten to kill Chase if he ever came near her again. People close to Chase knew that he always wore a shell necklace that Kya had given to him, but the shell necklace was missing when his body was found.

On the night of Chase’s death, Kya was seen in her boat near the water tower. Kya denies it. She claims she was on a short business trip to see a book publisher in Greenville, North Carolina, and that she didn’t return to Barkley Cove until after Chase’s death. Witnesses say that they saw Kya leave and return from her trip by bus. However, she has no proof of where she was between midnight to 2 a.m. on October 30, 1969.

At a local bar, a retired attorney named Tom Milton (played by David Strathairn) is having a conversation with a few other locals about the case. Tom comments, “I’m retired. It’s not my business anymore.” But then, in another example of the movie’s not-so-great editing in the beginning of the film, Tom is then shown meeting with Kya and telling her that he wants to be her defense attorney.

The movie never bothers to explain how and why Tom changed his mind about coming out of retirement to represent Kya in this murder case. Very little is a told about Tom’s trial strategy for the case, or what kind of experience/background he has as a criminal defense attorney. If people are expecting scenes where Tom and Kya have meetings to discuss the case, forget it. Those scenes aren’t in the movie, except for a brief discussion where Kya tells Tom in no uncertain terms that she won’t take a plea bargain, which would have given her an approximate 10-year prison sentence.

What the movie does show are numerous flashbacks about what happened in Kya’s life before she went on trial for Chase’s murder, as well as riveting scenes from the trial that began in 1970. These flashbacks are not in chronological order, but the movie at least does show on screen the year in which a scene is supposed to take place. Viewers who are not paying full attention to “Where the Crawdads Sing” when watching the movie might miss some crucial details and might get confused.

Kya’s birth name is actually Catherine Danielle Clark. She is the youngest of five children. And she has lived in Barkley Cove her entire life, in an isolated house near the marsh. Her unnamed parents (played by Garret Dillahunt and Ahna O’Reilly) have a troubled marriage because Kya’s father is a violent alcoholic, who often beats his wife and kids.

When Kya was 6 years old (played by Jojo Regina), her mother suddenly abandoned the family and never came back. Kya actually saw her mother leave with a suitcase, so the trauma of this memory haunts Kya. One by one, Kya’s older siblings—sister Missy, brother Murphy (aka Murph), sister Mandy and brother Jodie—leave the household. Jodie is closest in age to Kya, so his departure hurts Kya the most.

In the movie, Will Bundon portrays a young Jodie, while Logan Macrae plays the teenage/adult Jodie. Toby Nichols portrays teenage/young adult Murph. Emma Willoughby (also known as Emma Kathryn Coleman) portrays teenage/young adult Missy. Adeleine Whittle portrays teenage/young adult Mandy. All of these siblings except for Jodie (who comes back to Barkley Cove years later) remain distant from Kya.

Kya is about 12 or 13 years old when she’s the only child left to live with her father. She still fears him, but she finds that he treats her better now that he doesn’t have to take care of so many kids. He’s also eased up on drinking alcohol.

However, he’s extremely bitter about his wife’s abandonment. When Kya’s mother sends a letter, Kya’s father angrily burns the letter in front of Kya. He’s also so enraged that he burns everything that reminds him of his wife.

Kya’s father has a knapsack of shells and feathers. After Kya’s mother left the family, Kya began using her mother’s watercolor paints to paint these shells and feathers. Kya’s talent for drawing art and her fascination with shells and feathers become major parts of the story.

As a child, Kya is often left alone for days when her father goes on gambling binges. And after one of these trips away, Kya’s father never comes back. She learns to fend for herself by catching and growing her own food. She also sells some of her food at the local general store, which is owned an operated by a friendly couple named Jumpin’ (played by Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (played by Michael Hyatt), who have mutual respect for Kya.

Jumpin’ and Mabel know that Kya has been abandoned by her entire family, but they don’t want to report her to child welfare authorities because she is self-sufficient and isn’t causing any trouble. Kya is able to dodge any social services workers by hiding in the marsh if any authorities go to the home to visit. She gets the unflattering nickname Marsh Girl from people who know about her.

For most of her childhood, Kya is illiterate. On the one day she goes to school, she is taunted and laughed at by classmates for spelling the word “dog” as “god.” Kya runs away from the school and never goes back.

As a child, Kya briefly meets a boy around her age named Tate (played by Luke David Blumm), who is a friend of Jodie’s. When Kya is in her late teens and living on her own, Tate (played by Taylor John Smith) comes back into Kya’s life when she finds out he’s been leaving little gifts for her, such as booklets and supplies. Tate offers to teach Kya how to read and write when he finds out that she’s illiterate.

Just like Kya, Tate also comes from a working-class background and has a family tragedy that haunts him. His father is a shrimper. Tate’s mother and sister were killed in a car accident in Asheville, North Carolina. Tate feels tremendous guilt about their deaths because he believes that his mother and sister were in Asheville to get him a bicycle as a birthday gift.

Eventually, Tate and Kya become romantically involved with each other. However, their romance comes to an abrupt end when Tate goes away to college to pursue his dream of becoming a biologist. Before going away, Tate promised to keep in touch with Kya, but he never does.

Feeling abandoned and vulnerable, Kya ends up dating Chase, who ardently pursues her. He showers her with compliments and eventually promises that he will take care of her. However, there are some red flags about Chase, such as he doesn’t want to introduce Kya to his family. He also seems a little jealous that Kya is thinking about making money by selling her art as book illustrations.

Kya does indeed end up having a volatile relationship with Chase, which is why she’s the only suspect in his murder. What “Where the Crawdads Sing” does well is show how people who are abuse survivors see life in a different way, because they are often “on guard” or in “survival” mode. Kya’s experiences as an abuse survivor have a lot to do with the decisions that she makes in her life.

Just as in the book, the movie shows the outcome of the trial and who is guilty of Chase’s murder. How much people like the movie will depend on how much they’re engaged in Edgar-Jones’ performance. All of the other cast members are perfectly fine in their roles, but Edgar-Jones is utterly convincing in her role as this tortured soul, who doesn’t want people to see her as a victim. “Where the Crawdads Sing” certainly covers a lot of issues that have to do with how different social classes are treated and perceived, but the movie is also about not judging people by where they came from but who they are now.

Columbia Pictures and 3000 Pictures will release “Where the Crawdads Sing” in U.S. cinemas on July 15, 2022.

Review: ‘Fresh’ (2022), starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan

March 1, 2022

by Carla Hay

Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones in “Fresh” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures/Hulu)

“Fresh” (2022)

Directed by Mimi Cave

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Fresh” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A woman in her 20s thinks that she’s dating her dream guy, but when he kidnaps her and holds her captive in an isolated house in the woods, she finds out that he has terrible secrets.

Culture Audience: “Fresh” will appeal primarily to people interested in suspenseful “women in peril” movies with unusually ghastly surprises.

Jojo T. Gibbs in “Fresh” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures/Hulu)

The horror film “Fresh” is effectively terrifying and nauseating when the movie’s gruesome surprise is revealed. What will disturb many viewers the most is that it’s not just a contrived plot twist for a movie but something that could happen in real life. Because so much of what happens in “Fresh” is considered “spoiler information,” it’s best if viewers don’t know about this shocking plot development before seeing the movie. It’s enough to say that “Fresh” is definitely one of the more memorable horror movies that people can see in any given year.

“Fresh” had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, so what happens in the movie was already leaked online by people who saw “Fresh” almost two months before the movie was set to premiere on Hulu in the United States. (Outside the U.S., “Fresh” is available on other Disney-owned streaming platforms.) Directed by Mimi Cave and written by Lauryn Kahn, “Fresh” has all the elements of what could have been a formulaic film about a young woman held captive by someone she thought was a “nice guy.” However, thanks to above-average performances from the cast members and a taut thriller of a story that’s well-directed, “Fresh” is anything but an ordinary horror film.

The movie’s protagonist is Noa (played by Daisy Edgar-Jones), who’s in her early-to-mid-20s, single, and looking for love, although she’s the first person to admit that she hates dating. Noa lives in an unnamed U.S. city that’s not on the East Coast, because on her first date with the man who will become her sadistic captor, Noa says that she’s originally from the East Coast. Noa is an only child. Her father is dead, and she’s estranged from her mother, whose whereabouts are unknown to Noa. This is information that she also tells on the first date with the man who will be her kidnapper.

Not much else is revealed in the movie about Noa’s life, except that she lives alone. Her sassy best friend (and apparently only friend) is named Mollie (played by Jojo T. Gibbs), who is openly queer or bisexual. Noa and Mollie met about seven years ago, when Noa moved to the area where they live now. Noa and Mollie also used to be co-workers, but it’s never revealed what Noa does for a living. Mollie currently works in an unspecified office job, where she’s seen using her computer to do some Internet sleuthing after Noa goes missing.

“Fresh” opens with a scene showing Noa on a bad date at a low-priced restaurant. It’s a casual date, so she’s wearing a sweater and jeans. Her date is a boorish egomaniac named Chad (played by Brett Dier), who gives Noa a sexist lecture about what she’s wearing on the date.

Chad tells Noa: “The women in our parents’ generation, they just cared more about how they dressed and how they looked. They were more into femininity. Nowadays, I feel like girls wear oversized everything, like it’s a blanket. I think you would look good in a dress—not that you don’t look good in a sweater.”

And to top off this date, Chad asks Noa for the leftovers on her plate, so that he can take this unfinished meal home with him. Needless to say, there’s no second date between Noa and Chad. When she tells him at the end of the date that she doesn’t think that they’re compatible, he calls her a “stuck-up bitch” before he walks away.

On a day after this bad date, Noa and Mollie are doing boxing exercises in a gym while Noa tells Mollie about this unpleasant dating experience. Mollie and Noa talk about a dating app called Puzzle Piece, but Noa has become cynical about online dating. Noa is also a homebody type, so going to bars or nightclubs to meet people isn’t really her thing. Mollie thinks that Noa is being too fearful and that Noa should take more risks when it comes to dating.

Noa is in a lovelorn state of mind when she goes shopping at a grocery store and she unexpectedly meets a handsome man named Steve (played by Sebastian Stan), who strikes up a conversation with her about grapes. Steve, who’s about 10 to 15 years older than Noa, has a somewhat awkward flirtation with her. She’s charmed by his apparent down-to-earth and self-deprecating nature, so when Steve asks for Noa’s phone number, she gives it to him without hesitation.

Steve doesn’t waste time in contacting Noa for a date. Their first date is at a mid-scale restaurant/bar. A bartender who works there is named Paul (played by Dayo Okeniyi), and he happens to be an ex-boyfriend of Mollie’s. During Noa’s first date with Steve, she tells Steve a little bit about her background, which is how he finds out that Noa lives alone and doesn’t have her parents in her life. Steve says that he’s a doctor who’s originally from Texas. “I work in reconstructive surgery,” he adds. Steve also mentions that his father is still alive, but his mother is dead.

When Steve mentions that he’s not on any social media, Noa says flirtatiously, “How am I supposed to stalk you now?” Steve quips, “You’ll just have to do it in person, the old-fashioned way.” At one point in the conversation, Noa blurts out to Steve: “I hate dating! People who believe in true love are fucking idiots!” With that comment, Noa reveals that she actually feels hurt and vulnerable when it comes to love. Steve is charming and attentive to Noa. He says all the right things and makes her feel attractive.

Although it’s not unusual for people to talk about their backgrounds on a first date, in hindsight, Noa could certainly be considered an ideal target for a kidnapper because of what she revealed to Steve on their first date: She lives alone, she’s an only child whose parents are not in her life, she doesn’t have a lot of close friends, and she doesn’t appear to have a job that requires her to work in-person with other people. It’s exactly the type of “profile” of someone who might not have a lot of people searching for that person if that person is kidnapped.

It isn’t long before Noa and Steve become lovers. Their relationship happens so quickly, Noa doesn’t have time to introduce Steve to Mollie, but she does tell Mollie about him. Soon after Noa and Steve have begun dating each other, he invites her to a weekend getaway at a place that Steve says will be a romantic surprise.

At this point, Noa and Steve have only known each other for about two weeks or less. It would be easy to judge and say that it’s too soon to go away for getaway trip with a lover you’ve known for less than two weeks. But there are plenty of real-life examples of couples who’ve moved in together after knowing each other for a very short period of time. “Fresh” realistically shows how easy it is for people to get caught up in quickie romances if the people in the relationship feel trust and have a mutual “connection” with each other.

Noa knows that things are moving very fast with Steve. Mollie expresses some concern too, but Noa sees no reason not to trust Steve, so she accepts his invitation to go on the trip, which they will take in Steve’s car. Steve tells her that they should spend the night at his place before they leave for their getaway destination in the morning. When Steve picks Noa up in his car to take her on this trip, she has no idea of what’s in store for her.

“Fresh” is yet another horror movie where the terror takes place in a remote wooded area. Steve’s getaway house is at a place called Cottage Grove. And because this is a horror movie, Noa soon finds out that she can’t get cell phone service in this isolated area. Not long after arriving at Cottage Grove, Steve hands Noa a drink. And the next thing that Noa knows, she has woken up alone in a room, with her right hand handcuffed to a bed.

Noa eventually finds out why Steve kidnapped her. The rest of the movie shows what Noa does to try to escape and if other people are involved in Steve’s sordid secret life. As this depraved kidnapper, Stan gives a chilling performance of someone with a “Jekyll and Hyde” personality. Edgar-Jones is equally riveting as the trapped heroine who has to use her wits to try to escape from this horrible situation.

“Fresh” also has another heroine: Noa’s best friend Mollie, who actively does everything she can to find Noa when Noa goes missing. Mollie doesn’t have a lot of information about Steve, so her search for Noa is very difficult during the period of time when adults can’t be declared missing with law enforcement until 48 hours after the missing people were last seen. “Fresh” shows a lot of cruelty, but the friendship between Noa and Mollie is really at the heart of the film.

And as gory and unsettling as “Fresh” can be, the movie has some dark satire that brings some twisted comedy to this otherwise very grim horror story. The movie uses 1980s pop hits, such as Animotion’s “Obsession” and Peter Cetera’s “Restless Heart,” in scenes to juxtapose this nostalgic pop music with the current torture that is being inflicted in those scenes. There’s also a memorable scene where Noa dances with Steve, in an effort to let his guard down and make him completely trust her. “Fresh” is Cave’s feature-film directorial debut. And even though there are some predictable elements to “Fresh,” it’s an impressive first feature film and an indication that Cave is a talented filmmaker to watch.

Hulu will premiere “Fresh” on March 4, 2022.