The way her fierce fight for survival against neglect, judgement, and loneliness was portrayed hit right in the feels beautifully

Premise - 13/20 - First thing: never read the book. Going in fresh as someone who is watching a story about a girl that grew up mostly by herself in the marsh dealing with being a murder suspect. OK, not riveting. Cast/characters - 18/20 - Daisy Edgar-Jones was wonderful in Fresh, so I was in for this. She is spectacular in this and quite a beauty. Didn't know any other actors other than David Straithairn, so I can be unbiased in saying they are did their jobs well. I enjoyed Tate and the shopkeepers. I don't have the backstories from the book, but I can get the idea in the short amount of time spent on character development and relationships. One question I would've liked answered is why Chase had anything to do with "Marsh Girl" in the 1st place. He was an ex-football star (so a public hero) and had chicks all over town. Story - 17/20 - Dragged a bit in the middle after Tate did what he did, but the story was excellent and the ending was very good. Dialogue - 15/20 - Apparently, narration had to be used to substitute for plot points, and I'm OK with that. Conversations with Tate were good, conversations with Chase were frustrating, and the courtroom sequence seemed effective. World-building - 15/20 - Don't know much about a scenario like this because I've never seen backwoods NC. The visuals laid it out well. The town was created so that she had opposition from everyone as you might expect from a recluse. 78/100 - 4/5 stars - Daisy Edgar-Jones has become an actor that I'll watch regardless of plot. Again, without having read the book, I found the characters shallow but effective and the plot to move along well enough with a good beginning and end. Definitely worth the time.

Top model, with top hair, top skin, top teeths, no body hair (in the 60es!) tries to convince us she grew up all alone in the marshes.. Also the crawdads didn't even sing.. Also wtf are even crawdads..

I've never read the book but I'm sure going to. What a movie. It was strong and the scenery was amazing. I won't be shocked if it gets an Oscar nomination too