Where the Crawdads Sing

Director Olivia Newman's film adaptation of the 2018 novel by Delia Owens bites off more than it can chew, mixing a coming-of-age story with a murder mystery, a ...

To its credit, Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautiful-looking film. Let's just say that when it comes to singing crawdads, these ones are a little out of tune. But without much evidence of that, Edgar-Jones's monologue doesn't hit hard, and the scene fizzles. The movie grinds to a halt each time Tate or Chase tells Kya that no one knows them as she does, or that she's so different from everyone else. Part of Where the Crawdads Sing's strange slowness comes from is its focus on Kya's relationships with Tate and Chase. They are very different people with different motives, and they're both integral to the story. Instead, Tate and Chase and their saccharine dialogue eat up most of the runtime. You could switch out kissing scenes between each pairing and I wouldn't be able to tell you the difference, they're so similarly shot and choreographed. However, the rough arc of their romances with Kya is the same: initial courtship, happy relationship, sudden heartbreak. In this case, adherence to the source material hinders the movie instead of helping it. We linger for far longer on her two romances while the movie barely touches on other key elements of her adulthood. In reality, Kya is a lonely girl who finds comfort and beauty in the nature around her. We zoom through Kya's childhood and through her learning to fend for herself.

It didn't. Based on the 2018 novel by Delia Owens, the film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya, a young woman who is not-so-affectionately known as Marsh Girl ...

Where the Crawdads Sing is a weirdly uncomfortable movie, on many different levels. Equally as upsetting was the second boy who comes into Kya’s life, Chase (Harris Dickinson), the one whom Kya is on trial for murdering. She is always clean, her hair is always brushed, and her clothing is well-kempt. And yet, her mother never taught her to read or write. It honestly felt like director Olivia Newman and screenwriter Lucy Alibar would have preferred to make a story about Kya’s life, and only included the courtroom portions because it was part of the book, and therefore they had to. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to this: there will be a few scenes in the court, then lengthy scenes showing Kya’s life before the court case.

Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a young North Carolina woman who becomes the subject of investigation in this adaptation of Delia Owens' novel.

Couple this coming-of-age arc with the courtroom scenes (taking place in 1969) and Where the Crawdads resembles an odd amalgamation of a Nicholas Sparks film, The Help and To Kill a Mockingbird. But whereas the latter two examples contained a modicum of racial awareness, Where the Crawdads Sing is largely devoid of just that. More flashbacks — 1953, followed by 1962 and then 1968 — show us how Kya’s relationship to the world outside the marsh changes. Their relationship evolves slowly, in the manner of a predictably plotted YA novel. The first flashback takes us to 1953, where shots of the marshland, colored by a warm, vivid palette, are interrupted by the gray, subdued reality of Kya’s upbringing. Mabel teaches her how to count, gives her treats and sews her beautiful dresses (a nod here to costume designer Mirren Gordon-Crozier’s fine work). Occasionally, Kya must dodge child services and hawkish developers. This plot hole leaves room to contrive a situation in which Kya, whose father eventually leaves too, lives alone in her tiny family house that sits on acres of marshland. She is one of five children, who, in addition to her mother (Ahna O’Reilly), are abused by her alcoholic and temperamental father (Garret Dillahunt). One by one, beginning with her mother, Kya’s family members leave the marsh. After the police arrest Kya (she tries but fails to escape into the verdant, grassy terrain), they send her to jail. Reese Witherspoon, one of the film’s producers, made it her Book Club pick in September of that year, and to date 12 million copies have been sold. That Owens — already well-known before the novel — has managed to build an even more successful career despite details of her past resurfacing is bewildering. Directed by Olivia Newman (First Match), the film adaptation of Delia Owens’ popular and controversial novel of the same name tells the remarkable tale of a shy, reclusive girl raised in the marshes of North Carolina who finds herself embroiled in a grisly police investigation. Where the Crawdads Sing’s problems can be traced back to the source material.

Daisy Edgar-Jones shines in Olivia Newman's adaptation of the best seller, which binds a lonely young woman's love story to a legal potboiler.

That said, Newman’s film gets enough right to be just as solid as a summer cinematic distraction as Owens’ book was as beachside literature. However, for as much as we spend time with the rest of the cast, the performances they give are perfectly suited to the material. Courtroom scenes pop up without warning, and they only function in parallel to, and never in conjunction with, the flashback scenes that proceed or follow them. The film is at its best during these ostensible flashbacks, weaving a tale of loneliness and a lifelong sense of betrayal that would be compelling even without the murder that theoretically drives the plot. By that standard, Newman’s film is a success: it’s as faithful an adaptation as could likely be managed, warts and all. The task for director Olivia Newman and writer Lucy Alibar with their adaptation of Where The Crawdads Sing, like with many book club darlings that came before it, was to recreate as faithfully as possible Delia Owens’ 2018 novel—regardless of what improvements or deviations might be warranted for a different medium.

Coming from 3000 Pictures and Hello Sunshine (the production company helmed by Reese Witherspoon), this mystery thriller is based on the 2018 Delia Owens book ...

Let us know in the comments down below. With that said, the movie could hit Netflix much later but either way, right now we’re expecting a date in either late 2022 or early 2023. Newman has a history with Netflix having directed the independent sports movie First Match for the service which was released back in 2018.

Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kya, the venerable Marsh Girl, in a mystery as dark as it is romantic.

The movie, written by Lucy Alibar (“Beasts of the Southern Wild”) and directed by Olivia Newman with a confidence and visual vivacity that carry you along (the lusciously crisp cinematography is by Polly Morgan), turns out to be a myth of resilience. Kya meets a local boy, Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), who has the look of a preppie dreamboat and teaches her, out of the goodness of his heart, to read and write. (Unlike just about everyone else in the movie, she lacks even a hint of a drawl.) She does watercolor drawings of the seashells in the marshland, and her gift for making art is singular. Kya may have a past filled with torment, but on her own she’s free — to do what she likes, to find innovative ways to survive (she digs up mussels at dawn and sells them to the Black proprietors of a local general store, played by Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer Jr., who become her caretakers in town), and to chart her own destiny. The film then flashes back to 1953, when Kya is about 10 (and played by the feisty Jojo Regina), and her life unfolds as the redneck version of a Dickensian nightmare, with a father (Garret Dillahunt) who’s a violent abuser, a mother (Ahna O’Reilly) who abandons her, and a brother who soon follows. Yet with these stark currents in place, “Where the Crawdads Sing” segues into episodes with Kya as a teenager and young woman, and for a while the film seems to turn into a kind of badlands YA reverie.

The Reese Witherspoon-produced adaptation of the hit novel remains faithful to the fantasies of the book, for better and mostly for worse.

The final quarter of the two-hour film depicts her brisk, ludicrously simple trial, which only underscores Kya’s pristine innocence and her lifelong commitment to the marsh. By the townspeople of Barkley Cove, who are so reluctant to see the intelligent, sensitive young woman beneath the Marsh Girl myth that they suspect her of murder. With the help of handsome childhood friend Tate (Taylor John Smith), Kya learns to read, to translate her love of the marsh into scientific language, and in the film’s strongest section, to fall in love.

However, as a movie, Where the Crawdads Sing stumbles a bit in its transition from page to screen, though it is aided by a great lead performance.

Literally, in a way, as Where the Crawdads Sing holds some pacing issues. Where the Crawdads Sing will surely appease fans of the book, and on some level, its adherence to the source material is to be commended. Where the Crawdads Sing's greatest strength is Edgar-Jones (and Jojo Regina, who plays a younger Kya). Kya is a unique main character and Edgar-Jones does a great job in bringing her to life. Where the Crawdads Sing has been a book club favorite for years now, and as a result, its adaptation has some high expectations attached. To be sure, Where the Crawdads Sing makes some adjustments here and there, but they are relatively small. Get things right, and fans of the source material will sing its praises.

A body in a North Carolina marsh. A beautiful outcast. A sensationalist murder trial. "Where the Crawdads Sing" has all the elements for a sordid Southern ...

Not as trashy as your "Woman in the Windows" nor as irritating as "The Girl on the Train," "Where the Crawdads Sing" makes a glossy romance out of a murky murder mystery. But of all the female-led murder mysteries that have come out in the wake of Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl," "Where the Crawdads Sing" falls somewhere in the middle. Technically Owens is more adjacent to the murder of a poacher that was accidentally televised in 1996, but the writer is steeped in enough controversy that it earned "Where the Crawdads Sing" a few raised eyebrows, especially after the book shot to the top of the bestsellers lists in 2020. The rest of the town shuns and harasses her — except for Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith, sweet and a little insipid), a handsome son of a shrimper who romances her with feathers and seeds, before teaching her to read and write. All the same, thanks to a guileless and steely central performance by Edgar-Jones, "Where the Crawdads Sing" manages to find some harmony between its melodramatic swings and its slow-building mystery. Kya gets by on the mussels that she digs out of the marsh and sells in town, along with the kindness of a local Black shop-owning couple (Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer, Jr., trying their best to imbue personality to borderline stereotypical roles) who are the only ones who clue in on Kya's predicament.

US author Delia Owens, now-73, and her then-husband Mark appeared in a 1996 programme Deadly Game, which televised the death of a poacher in Zambia.

The only thing Mark ever did was throw firecrackers out of his plane, but just to scare poachers, not to hurt anyone.' It details their battles against poachers in Zambia's North Luangwa National Park. It attracts the attention of ABC He tells the presenter: 'I'm not comfortable at all with it. Delia would pen her first novel, Where the Crawdads Sing, years later - but the plot of the bestselling book bears striking similarities to her experience in the African country I'm absolutely uncomfortable with it. It took a lot of healing to get over it.' 1996 - ABC documentary titled Deadly Game is broadcast. Go get them, O.K.?' So go out there and get them. You shoot at them first, all right? We weren't allowed to call the Embassy or get a lawyer. Where The Crawdads Sing author Delia Owens is wanted in Zambia for questioning over a cruel 1990 televised killing, new reports claim - in echoes of her book about a lonely heroine who stands accused of a righteously motivated murder (pictured, Delia with her husband Mark in the North Luangwa National Park in Zambia)

The film version of one of the best-selling novels of all time is a by-the-numbers watercolor.

(Well, a ramshackle cabin as styled by Anthropologie.) She grows up to be resilient and reclusive, in reverent harmony with the nature surrounding her and suspicious of the nearby townsfolk who refer to her, derogatorily and rather un-creatively, as Marsh Girl. It is a film that could be said to fetishize poverty, or at least one that puts a rosy gloss on the direness of Kya’s circumstances. Kya has been gradually abandoned by her entire family—abused mom and siblings, violent and drunken dad—and left to fend for herself in a ramshackle cabin. At first glance, the new film Where the Crawdads Sing (in theaters July 15) appears to mark the welcome return of a lost form. This is the most basic kind of novel adaptation: rote and dutiful, reliant on memories of the book rather than creating a texture of its own. This type of filmmaking has largely been punted down to streaming services in recent years, where the quality has dipped and any metric to assess a film’s popularity is gone.

The author of 'Where the Crawdads Sing' is still wanted for the questioning in the murder of a poacher in Zambia in the '90s. Despite this, her book was ...

The Owenses were no strangers to animal research or human threats to wildlife — in the 1970s, the two traveled to Botswana to study wildlife until the government kicked them out for being too nosy about the fencing around a stretch of the Kalahari to herd cattle, changing the wildebeest’s migrating patterns and causing mass dehydration. In fact, we gwine stand right here tills ya tell me.” Somehow, though, the book and the movie are still being promoted by influential people such as Witherspoon. That’s wild. The ABC News documentary suggests the couple sought to protect a mythologized version of the continent, one that conveniently leaves out the fact of imperialism and its detrimental effects. And according to new reporting by Goldberg published July 11 in the The Atlantic, Delia and Mark are still wanted for questioning in the murder. Air raids directed by Mark and armed encounters with poachers were the norm, according to the ABC News documentary series Turning Point and an extensive 18,000-word New Yorker investigation by Jeffrey Goldberg. One episode of the doc filmed and broadcast the murder of a poacher, ostensibly committed by someone connected to the Owens family. “They are all wanted for questioning in this case, including Delia Owens.”

[T]he interplay between mystery and romance strikes a confusing tone in the adaptation...

Where The Crawdads Sing does something that is rare in book adaptations. The lines often feel forced and inauthentic, because of the disconnect between the storytelling and the creation of genuine moments in which the audiences can be immersed. The movie moves between Kya’s present, where her lawyer (David Strathairn) dutifully defends her in court, and flashbacks of her life growing up as an outsider among her peers – the “Marsh Girl,” as they all call her. Where The Crawdads Sing follows the fictitious life of Catherine “Kya” Clark (Daisy Edgar Jones), who grows up in a North Carolina marsh in the 1950s and 60s and becomes the prime suspect following the murder of an ex lover. A lot of this has to do with the movie’s decision to “tell” instead of “show.” Throughout the film, Kya is narrating the story, and while she is a quiet character, the telling doesn't match the visuals . It's explained that she is this outsider "Marsh Girl" who completely doesn’t fit in the world, and yet she is wearing beautifully styled clothing, her hair and makeup is done up, and she just doesn’t seem too different from her peers. When Delia Owens’ debut novel Where The Crawdads Sing hit bookshelves in 2018, it became a page-turning bestseller, particular thanks to the thriller being featured as a title in Reese Witherspoon's book club.

Writer Delia Owens, her husband Mark and son Christopher have been wanted for questioning in a murder case in Zambia since the mid-1990s.

“We would witness the ultimate price paid by a suspected poacher,” narrator Diane Sawyer said in the episode, adding: “The bodies of the poachers are often left where they fall for the animals to eat. Additional damning allegations are included in the New Yorker report, suggesting that the family encouraged a culture of fear and violence in pursuit of their animal rescue goals. A Zambian police detective further alleged that his father Mark then put the dead body in a cargo net and disposed of it in a lagoon. Regardless, it still plays over the end credits. But the cameraman, Chris Everson, claimed to Goldberg it was actually Christopher Owens, then 25 — not a hired Zambian game scout — who fired at least one gunshot that killed the man. Delia, 73, denied any wrongdoing in an interview with Goldberg, saying, “We don’t know anything about it.

Based on Delia Owens's 2018 novel, the upcoming film reflects similar events that happened in the author's own life.

Whatever the case, it has made Where the Crawdads Sing a creepily compelling story, both on and off the page. As readers, we are meant to side with Kya because Chase attempted to raped her, and is therefore the villain, and also because of Kya’s status as an outsider. Those who have read Where the Crawdads Sing may have picked up on some similarities already. While no formal charges have been filed against the Owenses—and Delia herself is not a suspect—they are still wanted for questioning by the government. After they left Africa, Mark and Delia moved to a remote area of northern Idaho called Boundary County. They have continued to deny their involvement in the murder. When Goldberg asked Everson how their group was transported away from the site of the killing, Everson wouldn’t answer. Mark dropped them at the site and then left the scene. Years later, Goldberg interviewed Delia briefly, and she denied that Christopher was even on site when the poacher was killed. Furthermore, she claimed that the speculation that Christopher was involved only came because the cameraman for the ABC special was also named Chris, and confusion between the two names made people believe Christopher had been present. Everson then began filming, capturing the scout firing the second shot and Christopher firing a third from offscreen. Penned by Delia Owens and published in 2018, Where the Crawdads Sing is now a movie starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, and Harris Dickinson. Produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company, the film hits theaters on July 13 and tells the story of Kya (Edgar-Jones), a woman who lives in the North Carolina marshland and raises herself from a young age. Turns out, the answer is a lot messier than you’d expect.

Where the Crawdads Sing” is hitting theaters. Here's what you need to know about the film and why the author's connection to a murder has people talking.

But the growing controversy surrounding the author has many taking a step back and raising questions about her dark past. Delia and Mark have also been accused of not being very tolerant of the locals, according to Goldberg. Suffers criticism from the nearby townsfolk for being “dirty.” And learns to confide in the only people who show kindness to her — a Black family in “Colored Town.” And she becomes the main suspect in the murder investigation. The then-couple's actions have also landed Witherspoon and Swift in hot water for being involved in the film. Both have been surrounded by nature, experienced isolation in remote areas, and have connections to a crime. In the mid-‘80s, they took their conservation work to Zambia — focusing on efforts to protect elephants from poachers. But as we said earlier, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is part love story and part murder mystery. What about the real-life murder?’ It’s got people asking: Did a true crime inspire “Where the Crawdads Sing”? Let’s get into what you need to know about the controversy. And has been left to fend for herself in the marshlands of North Carolina in the late '50s and ‘60s. She skips out on school — instead taking lessons from marsh wildlife. For decades, Owens has been wanted for questioning in a ‘90s murder case in Africa. And some can’t help but draw parallels between the real-life case and the murder mystery that takes place in the book.

Before she wrote her best-selling novel, Delia Owens and her then husband worked in Africa, protecting wildlife. Questions remain about the death of a suspected ...

The Duchess of Cornwall included it in her lockdown reading list. Women, in particular, have devoured it. In my case, I had my mother, a famous broadcaster and seemingly every member of my book club try to thrust it on me within a matter of weeks.