Where the Crawdads Sing Review

Where the Crawdads Sing is based on a bestselling novel by Delia Owens. This film tells the life of a young woman who had to survive in the Marshlands of North Carolina.

Catherine “Kya” Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones) has lived a solitary life since she was a young girl. Kya’s family abandoned her and she survived by selling muscles to a local shopkeeper. During her years of isolation Kya has relationships with two men, becomes a skilled artist and naturalist, and gets accused of murder.

There is always a risk that a popular novel doesn’t translate well to film. It happened to bestsellers like The Lovely Bones, The Girl on the Train, and The Bonfire of the Vanities, and Where the Crawdads Sing seemed to suffer a similar fate. At the time of writing this review, the film has a 34% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the audience reaction has been a lot more positive.

I have never read the novel so I can’t judge the film as an adaptation. As a film Where the Crawdads Sing was perfectly fine. It was mostly a coming-of-age drama with a murder mystery storyline and framed through a courtroom drama. I was more compelled by the story and characters in Where the Crawdads Sing than in some of the blockbusters that have come out this summer. It was different from the usual array of CGI-heavy actioners.

Where the Crawdads Sing stood out by being a slower-paced film that centred around an excellent performance from its lead actress. The film was told in five segments. The first was about her childhood where she was abandoned and needs to fend for herself. The second focused on Kya’s relationship with Tate (Taylor John Smith) who teaches her to read and write. The third was about the relationship with Chase (Harris Dickinson), a man who promises to marry Kya, and part four showed the potential suiters colliding. These four parts were told through the fifth segment, the trial.

Romance was the focus of the film. A user on Letterboxd described the film as ‘Manic pixie marsh girl’ which sums up the film perfectly. Kya was the object of desire for two men. Tate was a college bound man who knew Kya as a child and he helped her in different ways, from guiding her back home and teaching the young woman how to read. But Tate harboured dreams beyond the marsh. Chase was a preppy, well-off young man who was able to charm his way into Kya’s life.

This made Where the Crawdads Sing into a typical love triangle story. Kya had the choice between two equally handsome men, but one was clearly better than the other. Some critics have compared Where the Crawdads Sing to adaptations of Nicholas Sparks’ work. There similarities were there because Where the Crawdads Sing was a period piece set in the Southern States of America. Yet it could be argued that Where the Crawdads Sing was just following a popular trope in fiction. Protagonists in works like Pride and Prejudice and Far From the Madding Crowd have a choice between a good and a bad potential partner.

Lucy Alibar was hired to write the screenplay. Alibar was best known for co-writing Beasts of the Southern Wild, a whimsical film about a young girl who lived in the bayou of Louisiana. This experience was why Alibar was hired to adapt Where the Crawdads Sing. Alibar and the director, Olivia Newman, tried to bring in a scene of whimsy and wonder during some scenes, like Kya and Tate communicating by leaving feathers, and when Kya stood in a whirlwind of leaves.

These moments of whimsy and Kya’s whispery voiceover gave Where the Crawdads Sing a slight magical realist quality. Kya talked about the draw and power of the marsh. Magical realism can be the only possible reason to explain why Kya was left to live alone since the age of seven. The shopkeeping couple were portrayed as kind to Kya because she sold them muscles. I was thinking that the shopkeepers needed to take Kya in, call social service or something else!

Where the Crawdads Sing gave Edgar-Jones her first role in a theatrical film. Edgar-Jones had already had a growing reputation due to her TV work, especially due to her work in Normal People. Edgar-Jones did serve as an excellent silver screen debut as a young woman who hid away from society and slowly opens up to a few select people. She went through the emotional wringer throughout the film as she experienced love and pain.

Where the Crawdads Sing was a book club film, a film made to please fans of the novel. On that front it succeeded, whilst people who haven’t read the novel can see it as a serviceable if predictable drama.