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The cicadas buzz and the moss drips and the sunset casts a golden shimmer on the water every single evening. But while “Where the Crawdads Sing” is rich in atmosphere, it’s sorely lacking in actual substance or suspense.

Maybe it was an impossible task, taking the best-selling source material and turning it into a cinematic experience that would please both devotees and newbies alike. Delia Owens ’ novel became a phenomenon in part as a Reese Witherspoon book club selection; Witherspoon is a producer on “Where the Crawdads Sing,” and Taylor Swift wrote and performs the theme song, adding to the expectation surrounding the film’s arrival.

But the result of its pulpy premise is a movie that’s surprisingly inert. Director Olivia Newman , working from a script by Lucy Alibar , jumps back and forth without much momentum between a young woman’s murder trial and the recollections of her rough-and-tumble childhood in 1950s and ‘60s North Carolina. (Alibar also wrote “ Beasts of the Southern Wild ,” which “Where the Crawdads Sing” resembles somewhat as a story of a resourceful little girl’s survival within a squalid, swampy setting.)

It is so loaded with plot that it ends up feeling superficial, rendering major revelations as rushed afterthoughts. For a film about a brave woman who’s grown up in the wild, living by her own rules, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is unusually tepid and restrained. And aside from Daisy Edgar-Jones ’ multi-layered performance as its central figure, the characters never evolve beyond a basic trait or two.

We begin in October 1969 in the marshes of fictional Barkley Cove, North Carolina, where a couple of boys stumble upon a dead body lying in the muck. It turns out to be Chase Andrews, a popular big fish in this insular small pond. And Edgar-Jones’ Kya, with whom he’d once had an unlikely romantic entanglement, becomes the prime suspect. She’s an easy target, having long been ostracized and vilified as The Marsh Girl—or when townsfolk are feeling particularly derisive toward her, That Marsh Girl. Flashbacks reveal the abuse she and her family suffered at the hands of her volatile, alcoholic father ( Garret Dillahunt , harrowing in just a few scenes), and the subsequent abandonment she endured as everyone left her, one by one, to fend for herself—starting with her mother. These vivid, early sections are the most emotionally powerful, with Jojo Regina giving an impressive, demanding performance in her first major film role as eight-year-old Kya.

As she grows into her teens and early 20s and Edgar-Jones takes over, two very different young men shape her formative years. There’s the too-good-to-be-true Tate (Taylor John Smith ), a childhood friend who teaches her to read and write and becomes her first love. (“There was something about that boy that eased the tautness in my chest,” Kya narrates, one of many clunky examples of transferring Owens’ words from page to screen.) And later, there’s the arrogant and bullying Chase ( Harris Dickinson ), who’s obviously bad news from the start, something the reclusive Kya is unable to recognize.

But what she lacks in emotional maturity, she makes up for in curiosity about the natural world around her, and she becomes a gifted artist and autodidact. Edgar-Jones embodies Kya’s raw impulses while also subtly registering her apprehension and mistrust. Pretty much everyone lets her down and underestimates her, except for the kindly Black couple who run the local convenience store and serve as makeshift parents (Sterling Macer Jr. and Michael Hyatt , bringing much-needed warmth, even though there’s not much to their characters). David Strathairn gets the least to work with in one of the film’s most crucial roles as Kya’s attorney: a sympathetic, Atticus Finch type who comes out of retirement to represent her.

This becomes especially obvious in the film’s courtroom scenes, which are universally perfunctory and offer only the blandest cliches and expected dramatic beats. Every time “Where the Crawdads Sing” cuts back to Kya’s murder trial—which happens seemingly out of nowhere, with no discernible rhythm or reason—the pacing drags and you’ll wish you were back in the sun-dappled marshes, investigating its many creatures. ( Polly Morgan provides the pleasing cinematography.)

What actually ends up happening here, though, is such a terrible twist—and it all plays out in such dizzyingly speedy fashion—that it’s unintentionally laughable. You get the sensation that everyone involved felt the need to cram it all in, yet still maintain a manageable running time. If you’ve read the book, you know what happened to Chase Andrews; if you haven’t, I wouldn’t dream of spoiling it here. But I will say I had a variety of far more intriguing conclusions swirling around in my head in the car ride home, and you probably will, too.

Now playing in theaters.

Christy Lemire

Christy Lemire is a longtime film critic who has written for RogerEbert.com since 2013. Before that, she was the film critic for The Associated Press for nearly 15 years and co-hosted the public television series "Ebert Presents At the Movies" opposite Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, with Roger Ebert serving as managing editor. Read her answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film Credits

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault.

125 minutes

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Catherine 'Kya' Clark

Taylor John Smith as Tate Walker

Harris Dickinson as Chase Andrews

Michael Hyatt as Mabel

Sterling MacEr Jr. as Jumpin'

David Strathairn as Tom Milton

Garret Dillahunt as Pa

Eric Ladin as Eric Chastain

Ahna O'Reilly as Ma

Jojo Regina as Young Kya

Olivia Newman

Writer (based upon the novel by)

Delia Owens
Lucy Alibar

Cinematographer

Polly Morgan
Alan Edward Bell
Mychael Danna

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Cast & crew
User reviews

Where the Crawdads Sing

A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the Deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved. A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the Deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved. A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the Deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved.

Olivia Newman
Delia Owens
Lucy Alibar
Daisy Edgar-Jones
Taylor John Smith
Harris Dickinson
719 User reviews
194 Critic reviews
43 Metascore
2 wins & 13 nominations

Tate Walker

Chase Andrews

Jumpin'

Jodie Clark

Sheriff Jackson

Little Tate

Little Chase

Little Jodie

Deputy Perdue

Eric Chastain

All cast & crew
Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

Trivia Delia Owens : The author of the novel is seen in the courtroom sitting on the front row behind Tom when Patti is testifying about Chase's shell necklace.
Goofs All the of the addresses of publishers Tate gives to Kya have ZIP codes. He gave her the list in 1962; the first ZIP codes were established on July 1, 1963 and were not in common use until the late 1960s/early 1970s.

Tom Milton : Listen. I know you have a world of reasons to hate these people...

Kya Clark : No, I never hated them. They hated me. They laughed at me. They left me. They harassed me. They attacked me. You want me to beg for my life? I don't have it in me. I won't. I will not offer myself up. They can make their decision. But they're not deciding anything about me. It's them. They're judging themselves.

Crazy credits Kya's drawings appear alongside the credits.
Connections Featured in Everything Wrong with...: Everything Wrong With Where The Crawdads Sing in 18 Minutes or Less (2023)
Soundtracks Ain't It Baby Written by Kenny Gamble and Jimmy Bishop Performed by Kenny Gamble & The Romeos Courtesy of Jamie Record Co.

User reviews 719

mr_bickle_the_pickle
Jul 16, 2022

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How long is Where the Crawdads Sing? Powered by Alexa
July 15, 2022 (United States)
United States
Official site (Japan)
Official Sony Pictures
Xa Ngoài Kia Nơi Loài Tôm Hát
Houma, Louisiana, USA (street scenes)
3000 Pictures
Hello Sunshine
See more company credits at IMDbPro
$24,000,000 (estimated)
$90,230,760
$17,253,227
Jul 17, 2022
$144,353,965

Technical specs

Runtime 2 hours 5 minutes

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‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ Review: A Wild Heroine, a Soothing Tale

Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as an orphaned girl in the marshes of North Carolina in this tame adaptation of Delia Owens’s popular novel.

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By A.O. Scott

“Where the Crawdads Sing,” Delia Owens’s first novel, is one of the best-selling fiction books in recent years , and if nothing else the new movie version can help you understand why.

Streamlining Owens’s elaborate narrative while remaining faithful to its tone and themes, the director, Olivia Newman, and the screenwriter, Lucy Alibar ( “Beasts of the Southern Wild” ), weave a courtroom drama around a romance that is also a hymn to individual resilience and the wonder of the natural world. Though it celebrates a wild, independent heroine, the film — like the book — is as decorous and soothing as a country-club luncheon.

Set in coastal North Carolina (though filmed in Louisiana), “Where the Crawdads Sing” spends a lot of time in the vast, sun-dappled wetlands its heroine calls home. The disapproving residents of the nearby hamlet of Barkley Cove refer to her as “the marsh girl.” In court, she’s addressed as Catherine Danielle Clark. We know her as Kya.

Played in childhood by Jojo Regina and then by Daisy Edgar-Jones (known for her role in “Normal People” ), Kya is an irresistible if not quite coherent assemblage of familiar literary tropes and traits. Abused and abandoned, she is like the orphan princess in a fairy-tale, stoic in the face of adversity and skilled in the ways of survival. She is brilliant and beautiful, tough and innocent, a natural-born artist and an intuitive naturalist, a scapegoat and something close to a superhero.

That’s a lot. Edgar-Jones has the good sense — or perhaps the brazen audacity — to play Kya as a fairly normal person who finds herself in circumstances that it would be an understatement to describe as improbable. Kya lives most of her life outside of human society, amid the flora and fauna of the marsh, and sometimes she resembles the feral creature the townspeople imagine her to be. Mostly, though, she seems like a skeptical, practical-minded young woman who wants to be left alone, except when she doesn’t.

Kya attracts the attention of two young men. One, a dreamy, blue-eyed fisherman’s son named Tate (Taylor John Smith), who shares her love of shells, feathers and the creatures associated with them. Companions in childhood, they become sweethearts as teenagers, until Tate goes off to college, and Kya gets mixed up with Chase (Harris Dickinson), a handsome cad whose dead body is eventually found at the bottom of a fire tower deep in the marshlands.

Eventually but also right at the beginning. The movie begins with Chase’s death, in October, 1969. Kya is charged with murder, and her trial alternates with the story of her life up until that point. Her mother (Ahna O’Reilly) and siblings flee the violence of an abusive, alcoholic father (Garret Dillahunt), who eventually takes off too, leaving Kya on her own in possession of a metal motorboat, a fixer-upper with a screened-in porch and a curious and creative spirit.

“Where the Crawdads Sing” takes place in the ’50s and ’60s, which on the evidence of the film were uneventful decades in America, especially the American South. Kya’s hermit-like existence — she attends school for one day, doesn’t learn to read until Tate teaches her and has no radio or television — feels a bit like an alibi for the film’s detachment from history. The local store where she sells mussels and gases up her boat is run by a Black couple, Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt), who nurture and protect her and seem to have no problems (or children) of their own.

Kya’s outsider status — bolstered by the presence of David Strathairn as her Atticus Finch-like defense attorney — gives the movie a notion of social concern. Equally faint is the hint of Southern Gothic that sometimes perfumes the swampy air. But for a story about sex, murder, family secrets and class resentments, the temperature is awfully mild, as if a Tennessee Williams play had been sent to Nicholas Sparks for a rewrite.

Where the Crawdads Sing Rated PG-13. Wild but tame. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters.

A.O. Scott is a co-chief film critic. He joined The Times in 2000 and has written for the Book Review and The New York Times Magazine. He is also the author of “Better Living Through Criticism.” More about A.O. Scott

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Where the Crawdads Sing Reviews

it unfortunately runs the original story through the Hollywood machine, rendering it a surface-level and boilerplate experience that dilutes the emotional profundity of its source material. All the while being a borderline unbearable snooze fest.

Full Review | Nov 2, 2023

No doubt Alibar and Newman are just keeping as close as possible to the book. It is very much to their credit that they have committed so totally to giving the fans what they want without resorting to cheap fan service.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 31, 2023

Where the Crawdads Sing makes for a decent if generic coming-of-age story and a bland murder mystery.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 10, 2023

Try as it might, Where the Crawdads Sing amounts to nothing more than a shallow tale of otherness told through the lens of the prettiest, cleanest marsh girl you’ve ever seen.

Full Review | Aug 6, 2023

A solid interesting idea with a fantastic performance from Daisy really makes the film from being average!

Full Review | Jul 25, 2023

The all-female team of director Olivia Newman, screenwriter Lucy Alibar, and producer Reese Witherspoon do a tremendous job of painting a seductive small-town feel to a mystery thriller that should be anything but that.

Sanitized of any elements that could make this a marshy murder, Where The Crawdads Sing is a return to the type of films one would find in the Nicholas Sparksesque cinematic universe.

With no reason to fear for her safety, the bulk of the film feels like a soap opera.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jan 3, 2023

Where the Crawdads Sing feels like a novel truly coming to life. The scripting, the dialogue, the scenery choices, the score, has it all of the pieces to make you feel its great pacing & progression. The story may be harsh but its all the more encouraging

Full Review | Original Score: 9/10 | Jan 1, 2023

An old-school murder mystery primarily told as a courtroom drama, the paperback adaptation entertains from start to finish.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Nov 13, 2022

The book might have been a phenomenon, however the film lacks “the grits” of the original text. Sadly Where The Crawdads Sing becomes bogged down in courtroom drama tropes to truly sing in its own right.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Nov 13, 2022

…eventually settles for a fairly conventional Southern Gothic narrative with several plot points posted missing but a strong self-empowerment education message…

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 7, 2022

Where the Crawdads Sing is a beautifully haunting story of one girl's quiet resilience in a film that floats across multiple genres: thriller, romance and, ultimately, survival story.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2022

"Where the Crawdads Sing" is an imperfect but captivating drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Oct 10, 2022

Mellifluous but never cheesy, the film seeks effective and healing tears for fans of this kind of fare, and treks through territory that isn't too minor. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Oct 3, 2022

The PG-13-ness of Where the Crawdads Sing buffs every rough edge off this story—the abuse, the abandonment, the betrayal, the sex, and even the alleged murder. It would be better off as trash.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 3, 2022

A coming-of-age story and murder mystery about a young naturalist living in the marshes who has to find out who she can truly trust.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 30, 2022

Daisy Edgar-Jones dominates this role, she has the gift of reflecting any feeling without practically raising an eyebrow. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 29, 2022

Where the Crawdads Sing isn’t terrible because it’s a romantic drama — it’s terrible because it’s terrible.

Full Review | Sep 29, 2022

Edgar-Jones’ easygoing allure isn’t enough to bind Where the Crawdads Sing together, though, leaving the film a generic, dull outing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Sep 27, 2022

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‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ Review: The Bestselling Novel Turned Into a Compelling Wild-Child Tale

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

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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Sometimes a movie will turn softer than you thought it would — more sunny and upbeat and romantic, with a happier ending. Then there’s the kind of movie that turns darker than you expect, with an ominous undertow and an ending that kicks you in the shins. “ Where the Crawdads Sing ” is the rare movie that conforms to both those dynamics at once.

Adapted from Delia Owens ’ debut novel, which has sold 12 million copies since it was published in 2018, the movie is about a young woman whose identity is mired in physical and spiritual harshness. Kya Clark ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ) has grown up all by herself in a shack on a marshy bayou outside Barkley Cove, N.C. When we meet her, it’s 1969 and she’s being put on trial for murder. A young man who Kya was involved with has fallen to his death from a six-story fire tower. Was foul play involved? If so, was Kya the culprit? The local law enforcers don’t seem too interested in evidence. They’ve targeted Kya, who is known by the locals as Marsh Girl. For most of her life, she has been a scary local legend — the scandalous wild child, the wolf girl, the uncivilized outsider. Now, perhaps, she’s become a scapegoat.

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. Kya is left with Pa, who retains his cruel ways (when a letter arrives from her mother, he burns it right in front of her), though he eases up on the beatings. Barefoot and undernourished, she tries to go to school and lasts one day; the taunting of the other kids sends her packing. Pa himself soon ditches Kya, leaving the girl to raise herself in that marshland shack.

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All very dark. 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. 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.

You’d expect someone known as Marsh Girl to have a few rough edges. Remember Jodie Foster’s feral backwoods ragamuffin in “Nell”? (She, too, was from North Carolina.) Yet Kya, for a wild child, is pretty refined, with thick flowy hair parted in the middle, a wardrobe of billowy rustic dresses, and a way of speaking that makes her sound like she grew up as the daughter of a couple of English teachers. (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. She’s like Huck Finn meets Pippi Longstocking by way of Alanis Morissette.

The English actor Daisy Edgar-Jones, who has mostly worked on television (“Normal People,” “War of the Worlds”), has a doleful, earnest-eyed sensuality reminiscent of the quality that Alana Haim brought to “Licorice Pizza.” She gives Kya a quiet surface but makes her wily and vibrantly poised — which isn’t necessarily wrong , but it cuts against (and maybe reveals) our own prejudices, putting the audience in the position of thinking that someone known as Marsh Girl might not come off as quite this self-possessed. 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. It looks like the two are falling in love, at least until it’s time for him to go off to college in Raleigh. Despite his protestations of devotion, Kya knows that he’s not coming back.

You could say that “Where the Crawdads Sing” starts out stormy and threatening, then turns romantic and effusive, then turns foreboding again. Yet that wouldn’t express the way the film’s light and dark tones work together. 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. It’s Kya’s story, and in her furtive way she keeps undermining the audience’s perceptions about her.

The scenes of Kya’s murder trial are fascinating, because they’re not staged with the usual courtroom-movie cleverness. Kya is defended by Tim Milton ( David Strathairn ), who knew her as a girl and has come out of retirement to see justice done. In his linen suits, with his Southern-gentleman logic, he demolishes one witness after another, but mostly because there isn’t much of a case against Kya. The fellow she’s accused of killing, Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), is the one she took up with after Tate abandoned her, and he’s a sketchier shade of preppie player, with a brusque manner that is less than trustworthy. He keeps her separate from his classy friends in town (at one point we learn why), and his scoundrel tendencies just mount from there. Did she have a motive for foul play?

“Where the Crawdads Sing” is at once a mystery, a romance, a back-to-nature reverie full of gnarled trees and hanging moss, and a parable of women’s power and independence in a world crushed under by masculine will. The movie has a lot of elements that will remind you of other films, like “The Man in the Moon,” the 1991 drama starring Reese Witherspoon (who is one of the producers here). But they combine in an original way. The ending is a genuine jaw-dropper, and while I wouldn’t go near revealing it, I’ll just say that this is a movie about fighting back against male intransigence that has the courage of its outsider spirit.

Reviewed at Museum of Modern Art, July 11, 2022. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 125 MIN.

Production: A Sony Pictures Releasing release of a 3000 Pictures production. Producers: Reese Witherspoon, Lauren Neustadter. Executive producers: Rhonda Fehr, Betsy Danbury.
Crew: Director: Olivia Newman. Screenplay: Lucy Alibar. Camera: Polly Morgan. Editor: Alan Edward Bell. Music: Mychael Danna.
With: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr., David Strathairn, Jayson Warner Smith, Garret Dillahunt, Ahna O’Reilly, Eric Ladin.

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Where the Crawdads Sing Eats Itself into Nothingness

In a perfect vacuum, you probably wouldn’t guess that Where the Crawdads Sing is based on a runaway publishing phenomenon, a book that has sold more than 12 million copies in just a few years. One doesn’t have to have loved Delia Owens’s debut novel to see why it has appealed to countless readers. Part murder mystery, part swoony romance, part cornpone coming-of-age tale, it’s an atmospheric and gleefully overheated melodrama, the kind of book that might make you tear up even as you curse its (many, many) shortcomings. The movie is resolutely faithful to the incidents of the novel, but it doesn’t seem particularly interested in standing on its own, in being a movie . It feels like an illustration more than an adaptation.

The story of Kya Clark, a young girl abandoned by her destitute family and forced to survive on her own in a remote corner of the North Carolina wilderness, the film starts off (much like the book) with a murder investigation and then flashes back to her life. The body of a man, Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), has been found in the woods, and suspicion has settled on Kya (played as an adult by Daisy Edgar-Jones), a loner known to much of the town as “the Marsh Girl.” Taking up the case is a kindly local retired lawyer (played by a much-needed David Strathairn), who believes that Kya has been accused not because of any actual evidence against her, but because she’s been an outcast all her life, ridiculed and hated for years by the townsfolk as some kind of crazy, uncivilized brute.

As we go through Kya’s earlier years, we see a childhood defined by solitude — her mother and her siblings all leave their abusive father one by one, and dad himself (Garret Dillahunt) eventually disappears, leaving Kya alone in the family’s run-down shack on the edge of the marsh. As she grows up, Kya is romanced by a couple of blandly handsome two by fours — nerdy-nice Tate (played by Taylor John Smith as a grown-up) who shares her obsession with nature but then abandons her, and then local rich-boy Chase, who seems fascinated by her but clearly has little interest in a real relationship. We’re supposed to like one and dislike the other, but both Tate and Chase are so underdeveloped that it’s initially hard to feel much of anything for either. They barely register as people. Smith does little but stare lovingly, and Dickinson (who has, to be fair, distinguished himself in previous roles) brings a dash of snotty entitlement to Chase, but not much else.

The best thing about both novel and movie is Kya herself, a submerged character who finds solace and companionship in nature, and who, never having lived anything resembling a normal life around other people, doesn’t quite know what to do with her emotions. As the young Marsh Girl, Jojo Regina is quite moving; your heart goes out to her when a character reads out the local school lunch menu as a way of enticing the impoverished Kya to attend class. It’s a tough balance, to present a child as being both feisty and vulnerable without going overboard into schmaltzy pathos, and the film handles that particular challenge fairly well. As the grown-up Kya, Edgar-Jones is perhaps best at conveying this young woman’s wounded inner life; that speaks to the actress’s talents. However, she never really feels like someone who emerged from this world, but rather one who was dropped into it; that speaks to the clunky filmmaking.

It’s kind of a shock to find the movie version of Crawdads so lacking in atmosphere, as you’d think that’d be the one thing it would nail. Not the least because that lies at the heart of the book’s appeal: Owens spends pages describing the rough, wild, primeval world in which Kya lives, and she convincingly presents the girl as a part of the natural order of this untouched world. At various points, Kya sees herself reflected in the behavior of wild turkeys, snow geese, fireflies, seagulls, and more. She calls herself a seashell and later on finds friendship in Sunday Justice, the jailhouse cat. Where the Crawdads Sing is a book that drips with atmosphere and environmental detail, which enhance our understanding of the protagonist — and help justify some of the story’s more dramatic turns. Owens is herself a retired wildlife biologist who had previously written a number of nature books before turning to fiction. It’s no surprise that her novel works best as an extension of her prior work.

By contrast, the film’s director, Olivia Newman, presents the marsh as a postcard-pretty backdrop, a mostly distant and at times surprisingly calm and orderly space. There’s little sense of wildness, of unpredictability or abandon. Readers will of course often imagine settings differently than film adaptations, but that’s not the problem here. Onscreen, the marsh just never really registers as any kind of place, and it certainly doesn’t register as a spiritual canvas for Kya’s journey. (At times, I wondered if some of the landscape shots might actually have been green-screened in.) Even the fact that Kya has spent much of her life drawing the wildlife of the region – which ultimately plays a huge role in who she becomes – doesn’t come into play until relatively late in the film. None of these would necessarily be problems if the film weren’t otherwise so faithful to the book’s narrative.

This is the challenge of literary condensation. The murder investigation and the ensuing courtroom drama are the least compelling parts of Owens’s novel, there mostly as a loose framing device to tell Kya’s life story. Indeed, she saves the bulk of the trial for the back half of the book, and then breezes by the suspense and the procedural back-and-forth, presumably because she’s not interested in all that. (Spoiler alert: She’s more interested in the twist she springs in her final pages – a twist that also has some eerie echoes of a real-life murder investigation in Zambia that Owens and her ex-husband are reportedly embroiled in, but that’s a whole other crazy story .)

That leaves the movie with a genre-friendly structure, but almost nothing to populate it with. As a result, for much of Where the Crawdads Sing , we’re left watching a not-very interesting and all-but predetermined trial, with little suspense or surprise. We don’t ever really see what the prosecution’s case is against Kya. (If you read the book, you’d have some sense of it, but even there, it’s cursory and half-baked.) It’s a classic Catch-22: The film, to stay true to its wildly popular source material, has to focus on the case, which in turn leaves the picture little room to breathe, to let the audience bask in the atmosphere of this fascinating milieu… which is at least partly why the source material was so wildly popular in the first place. So, forget the crawdads, the turkeys, the fireflies, the seashells, and the snow geese. Forget even the jailhouse cat. The movie is a snake that eats itself.

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Review: ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is the latest literary sensation turned ho-hum movie

Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith in "Where the Crawdads Sing."

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In 2018, retired zoologist Delia Owens, the author of the bestselling 1984 memoir “Cry of the Kalahari,” published her first novel at the age of 69. “Where the Crawdads Sing” is set on the North Carolina coast in the 1950s and ’60s, threading romance and murder mystery through the life story of a young, isolated woman, Kya, who grows up abandoned in the marsh. The story is a bit far-fetched, the characterizations broad, but there’s a beauty in Owens’ description of Kya’s relationship to the natural world. Her derisive nickname, “the Marsh Girl,” ultimately becomes her strength.

“Where the Crawdads Sing” has become a legitimate publishing phenomenon, one of the bestselling books of all time, despite a controversy bubbling in Owens’ past — a connection to the killing of a suspected animal poacher in Zambia. Reese Witherspoon bestowed the book with her book club blessing, and as she has done with other titles from her club, like “Big Little Lies,” Witherspoon has produced the film adaptation of “Where the Crawdads Sing,” written by Lucy Alibar, directed by Olivia Newman, and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones as the heroine, Kya.

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The film is easily slotted into the Southern gothic courtroom drama sub-genre — it’s like “A Time to Kill” with a feminine touch. While the nature of adaptation requires compression and elision, the film dutifully tells the story that fans of the book will turn out to see brought to life on the big screen. But in checking off all the plot points, the movie version loses what makes the book work, which is the time we spend with Kya.

Kya is a tricky protagonist whose life story requires a certain suspension of disbelief. Abandoned by her mother (Ahna O’Reilly) and siblings escaping the drunken abuse of her father (Garret Dillahunt), who later disappears, young Kya (Jojo Regina) survives on her own, selling mussels to the proprietor of the local bait and tackle shop, Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.). His wife, Mabel (Michael Hyatt), takes pity on Kya and offers her some clothes and food donations, but it’s an exceedingly tough existence, something that the film does not manage to fully convey.

As a teen, Kya forms a friendship with a local boy, Tate (Taylor John Smith), who teaches her to read, and though their relationship turns romantic, he ultimately leaves her for college. Abandoned once again, she seeks companionship with popular local cad Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson). It’s his death, from a fall at the rickety fire tower, that sees Kya on trial in the town of Barkley Cove, which ultimately becomes a referendum on how she’s been harshly judged over the years by the townspeople.

The only reason Kya works in the book is the amount of time the reader spends with her in the marsh, understanding the tactics she uses to get by, and getting to know the natural world in the way that she does, observing the patterns and life cycles of animals, insects, and plants. The deep knowledge of her environment and ad-hoc education from Tate helps Kya overcome poverty, as she publishes illustrated books of local shells, plants, and birds. But in the film, which sacrifices getting to know her in order to prioritize the more scandal-driven twists and turns, Kya comes off as somewhat silly, a bit easy to laugh at in her naiveté and guilelessness.

There’s also the matter of plausibility, and the shininess with which this rough, wild world has been rendered by Newman and cinematographer Polly Morgan. The marsh (shot on location in Louisiana) is captured with a crisp, if perfunctory beauty, but it’s hard to buy English rose Edgar-Jones in her crisp blouses and clean jeans as the near-feral naturalist who has been brutally cast out by society. Everything’s just too pretty, a Disneyland version of the marsh.

The whole world feels sanded-down and spit-shined within an inch of its life, lacking any grime or grit that might make this feel authentic, and that extends to the storytelling as well. It feels exceedingly rushed, as the actors hit their marks and deliver their monologues with a sense of obligation to moving the plot along rather than developing character. Hyatt, as Mabel, and David Strathairn, who plays Kya’s lawyer, Tom Milton, are the only actors who deliver grounded performances that feel like real people — everyone else feels like a two-dimensional version of an archetype spouting the necessary backstory or subtext to keep the plot churning forward.

Though it is faithful, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is lacking the essential character and storytelling connective tissue that makes a story like this work — an adaptation such as this cannot survive on plot alone.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

'Where the Crawdads Sing'

Rating: PG-13, for sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault Running time: 2 hours, 5 minutes Playing: In general release July 15

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Where the crawdads sing, common sense media reviewers.

Standout performances in uneven, trauma-filled adaptation.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Explores importance of nature, self-education, and

Kya is observant, a quick learner, a dedicated nat

Two of Kya's few friends are Jumpin' and his wife,

Children hear their father beating their mother an

Two love scenes: one quick, the other a bit longer

Insult language: "marsh girl," "White trash," "rat

High school- and college-age characters drink beer

Positive Messages

Explores importance of nature, self-education, and being a lifelong learner. Depicts the many reasons people need companionship and love. Also looks at the lasting impact of trauma and abandonment and the loneliness of isolation. Themes include empathy and perseverance.

Positive Role Models

Kya is observant, a quick learner, a dedicated naturalist. She's incredibly smart and talented. Tate is generous with his time and knowledge. He's smart and loves the marsh as much as Kya, but he also breaks her heart. Jumpin' and Mabel are selfless and helpful.

Diverse Representations

Two of Kya's few friends are Jumpin' and his wife, Mabel, the movie's only Black characters of note. They're kind, generous, loving to Kya. Although their involvement in Kya's life is less stereotypical than it was in the book, they can still be considered examples of the "magical Negro" cliché -- i.e., characters of color who exist solely to aid White protagonists. Kya herself is a self-educated "genius" who doesn't attend traditional school.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Children hear their father beating their mother and siblings. A woman with visible bruises leaves her family. Siblings who are similarly hurt also leave, one by one. A father slaps his young daughter. A dead body is shown a few times. Intimate-partner violence continues in the next generation when Kya's former boyfriend stalks her menacingly and commits sexual assault and attempts to rape her, calling her "his."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Two love scenes: one quick, the other a bit longer. Both show men's bare chests and a woman's bare shoulders and back. Two different couples are shown flirting, holding hands, kissing. One couple is about to have sex but stop before it happens.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Insult language: "marsh girl," "White trash," "rat girl," "cooties." "Damn," "damn you," "Christ sakes," "whoring," "goddamn." A Black man is called "boy" by a younger White man.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Drinking, drugs & smoking.

High school- and college-age characters drink beer. Adults drink at a restaurant. Kya's father drinks to excess and acts like he's self-medicating to treat unspecified mental illness.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that Where the Crawdads Sing is a romantic mystery/drama based on Delia Owens' bestselling 2018 novel. It's set in the coastal marshes of 1950s-'60s North Carolina, where young Kya is dubbed "Marsh Girl" because she lives in near-complete isolation. As a young adult, Kya ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ), who doesn't trust the nearby townspeople, is accused of murder. Like the book, the film deals with heavy subjects, including child abandonment, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. The language is largely insults and uses of "damn" and "goddamn"; a White man also calls a Black man "boy." Violent scenes involve disturbing acts of intimate-partner abuse, child abuse, and sexual assault. A character is alcohol dependent and has an unspecified mental health condition. Kya experiences two pivotal romantic relationships, both of which include kissing and love scenes. The movie's depiction of two Black characters, while better than the book's, still plays into the "magical Negro" cliché, in which a character of color exists only to help a White main character. Issues related to trauma and isolation are threaded throughout the story, but so are the importance of nature, conservation, and education, giving parents and teens plenty to talk about after watching. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Community Reviews

Parents say (26)
Kids say (35)

Based on 26 parent reviews

Excellent story but contains violence and sexual abuse

Great movie, for adults., what's the story.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING is based on the bestselling historical romantic mystery novel written by naturalist Delia Owens. Set in a fictional North Carolina coastal town, the story takes place in the 1950s and '60s. In 1952, a young Kya Clark (Jojo Regina) witnesses her abused mother hurriedly leave the family, with the rest of the children following in her footsteps. Alone with her father ( Garret Dillahunt ), who's physically abusive and alcohol-dependent, Kya grows used to being alone in the marsh where her family's cabin sits. When her father also leaves, Kya learns to fend for herself with a little help from empathetic general store owners Jumpin' (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt). As she gets older, Kya lasts literally one day at the public school before bullying kids chase the "Marsh Girl" away. Years later, local high schooler Tate Walker ( Taylor John Smith ) teaches a now teenage Kya ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ) to read and write. After Tate leaves for college, Kya starts a relationship with popular quarterback Chase Andrews ( Harris Dickinson ), wooed by his promises of marriage and stability. When Chase is found dead in the marsh in 1969, Kya is accused of murder and defended by a local attorney ( David Strathairn ) who believes the townsfolk should feel guilty for mistreating Kya.

Is It Any Good?

The beauty of the natural setting and the central love story aren't quite enough to save this adaptation from the slippery slope of melodrama, but Edgar-Jones gives a standout performance. The genre-bending page-to-screen drama is like a classic tragic romance set in the American South, with young Kya an almost Dickensian figure. The cruelties that young Kya must endure are nearly unwatchable: Her entire family abandons her, her father slaps her, the other kids taunt her. Later, audiences will cheer as Kya grows into a young woman who observes all the fauna and flora of the marsh with joy and admiration (and as the lovely and selfless Tate takes an interest in tutoring her and clearly falls in love). But Kya's bad luck ultimately continues, and she ends up not with brilliant scientist-in-training Tate but with predatory and deceitful Chase, who's more interested in conquest than true love.

Screenwriter Lucy Alibar's adaptation makes the murder case against Kya the framing device that spawns flashbacks to the romances, tragedies, and family drama. But, unlike the book, the movie version of Where the Crawdads Sing doesn't fully explore each of those aspects of the story. The court proceedings in particular don't explore the details that make the eventual revelations pack an extra punch. What director Olivia Newman does explore is the way that darkness lurks just beneath the lush landscape. For every feather or shell that Kya collects, there's an ugly secret, a foul rumor, a moment of abuse to witness. It's no wonder Kya prefers the marsh to the town, the kindness of Jumpin' and Mabel to the scrutiny of Chase's friends. Kya, like the animals she's observed her whole life, knows when to shrink into herself as a survival mechanism. And while the movie can be overly sentimental, there are some lovely sequences, usually between Edgar-Jones and Smith. It also has notable messages about the importance of nature, love, and treating the disenfranchised with respect and dignity.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the violence in Where the Crawdads Sing . Is it necessary to the story? Do different kinds of violence impact viewers differently?

How do trauma and substance use play a role in the story? What are some character strengths that Kya and Tate display? Who do you consider a role model ?

Discuss what role the setting plays in the movie. Why is nature so important to Kya?

If you've read the book, talk about any differences between the book and movie. What do you think about aspects of the book that the movie added or changed?

How does the movie treat sex and consent? Parents, talk to your teens about sex, consent, and sexual assault.

Movie Details

In theaters : July 15, 2022
On DVD or streaming : September 13, 2022
Cast : Daisy Edgar-Jones , Harris Dickinson , Taylor John Smith , Garret Dillahunt
Director : Olivia Newman
Inclusion Information : Female directors
Studio : Sony Pictures Entertainment
Genre : Drama
Topics : Book Characters , Science and Nature
Character Strengths : Empathy , Perseverance
Run time : 125 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault
Last updated : May 15, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Where The Crawdads Sing Review

Where The Crawdads Sing

Translating a much-loved novel to the big screen is always a tricky task. With Delia Owens’ Where The Crawdads Sing , which has sold more than 12 million copies to date, the audience is big and the expectations are high. This cinematic version, produced by Reese Witherspoon ’s Hello Sunshine, unfortunately doesn’t succeed in meeting them.

Daisy Edgar-Jones , a star on the rise after her incredible performance in BBC/Hulu series Normal People and playing a gutsy final girl in horror-thriller Fresh , is plunged into a swampy, period environment here. She is Kya, a solitary young woman left to fend for herself after her mother, then siblings, then abusive father, all desert her. Shunned by the townsfolk around her, it doesn’t take long for fingers to point in her direction when a man is found dead near her home.

You never quite buy the young, thin, beautiful, white Kya as a true outsider.

This murder accusation, and the trial deciding Kya’s fate, is the framing device for the film. Ditching the more chronological approach of the book, Lucy Alibar’s screenplay reveals the crime at the very top of the runtime, flashing backwards and forwards to fill in the gaps. This might not be an uncommon way to approach this kind of story, but it does dispel a certain amount of tension from the start — and the loose, feeble attempt at courtroom drama is nowhere near gripping enough to make it a setting we’re keen to return to.

Edgar-Jones’ natural charm, steely determination and convincing, almost-feral disposition, especially early on, keep you on Kya’s side, and Harris Dickinson impresses once again as charmingly sinister former quarterback Chase Andrews. He and Kya’s toxic, sometimes violent relationship adds some edge to this otherwise quite gentle movie — and though their dynamic is contrasted nicely by the safety and warmth Kya feels with all-American shrimper’s son Tate (Taylor John Smith), the latter pairing leaves a lot to be desired in terms of chemistry.

The trouble with this version of Where The Crawdads Sing is that you never quite buy the young, thin, beautiful, white Kya as a true outsider. The girl from the novel, covered in dirt and consumed by gnawing loneliness, is sanded down and smoothed out, her every thought over-explained by incessant voiceover. That treatment seems to have been applied to every other element of the film, too — so much so, it feels like it would be more at home in the BBC’s 8pm Sunday night slot than here on the big screen. The direction and cinematography are thoroughly conventional, lacking in much flavour or wonder, save for some beautiful sunset shots of the marshes, and the score is often saccharine and overbearing. For fans of the book, there will be some satisfaction in watching these characters come to life and the plot’s twists and turns play out — but for newcomers to this story, it is, unfortunately, underwhelming.

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Where The Crawdads Sing Reviews Are In, See What Critics Are Saying About The Adaptation Of The Bestselling Book

Daisy Edgar-Jones stars in the book-to-film adaptation.

Delia Owens took the literary world by storm with her 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing , and it was little surprise when the film got picked up to be adapted as a movie . Reese Witherspoon is a producer on the upcoming mystery drama after selecting the book for her Hello Sunshine Book Club, and now audiences are about to see the struggles of Marsh Girl Kya play out on the big screen. Where the Crawdads Sing has screened for critics ahead of its July 22 release, and the reviews are in.

Daisy Edgar-Jones stars as Kya Clark, a girl who is forced to grow up early and learn to survive on her own in the North Carolina marsh after being abandoned by her parents and siblings. Kya finds herself a suspect in a murder when her ex-boyfriend Chace Andrews (Harris Dickinson) turns up dead.

So how did critics feel about director Olivia Newman’s vision of Delia Owens’ best-selling book ? Let’s turn to the reviews, starting with CinemaBlend’s review of Where the Crawdads Sing . Our own Sarah El-Mahmoud rates the film 3 stars out 5, saying the film loses some of the spirit of the beloved book, as Olivia Newman seems to avoid the story’s grittiness in a somewhat glossy adaptation. She argues:

Just because a story is popular and is given a sizable budget to be adapted to the big screen, why should the spirit of the character be made nice and marketable, when the very core of her being is someone who is rough around the edges and cast out by the mainstream?

Hoai-Tran Bui of SlashFilm was similarly underwhelmed with the film, rating it 6 out of 10. This review says the murder mystery is turned into a glossy romance, resulting in a “soapy snooze”:

Despite the sordid stories surrounding its author and despite the sensationalist murder trial which makes up the bulk of its narrative, Where the Crawdads Sing is pretty banal. Its attempts at social commentary comes up short, while its heartstring-tugging is half-assed. The bildungsroman beats are promising before it gives way to the soapy love triangle that feels like a Nicholas Sparks reject. The saving graces are Edgar-Jones and David Straithairn, the latter of whom gives a warm, folksy performance as Kya's lawyer and lone sympathetic ear during the trial that seems like it's all but convicted her for murder based on evidence that is clearly circumstantial.

Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter calls the adaptation a “muddled moral fantasy” whose narrative relies heavily on racial and gender stereotypes. This review says while the Black characters are underdeveloped (a fault of the book as well, the critic argues), Kya is painted as so beautiful and delicate that she comes off as more “manic pixie dream girl than misanthropic protagonist”:

Where the Crawdads Sing is the kind of tedious moral fantasy that fuels America’s misguided idealism. It’s an attempt at a complex tale about rejection, difference and survival. But the film, like the novel it’s based on, skirts the issues — of race, gender and class — that would texture its narrative and strengthen its broad thesis, resulting in a story that says more about how whiteness operates in a society allergic to interdependence than it does about how communities fail young people.

David Ehrlich of IndieWire grades the movie a C+, saying Olivia Newman made Delia Owens’ literary sensation into a summer popcorn flick, as it never dives deeper than surface level. The film adaptation isn’t worthy of same celebration received by the book, but it finds just enough ways to endure, in large part thanks to its star, the review says:

The film version of Where the Crawdads Sing is a lot more fun as a hothouse page-turner than it is as a soulful tale of feminine self-sufficiency. That it’s able to split the difference between Nicholas Sparks and Nell with any measure of believability is a testament to Daisy Edgar-Jones’ careful performance as Kya Clark.

Owen Gleiberman of Variety , meanwhile, finds Where the Crawdads Sing “compelling,” but says Daisy Edgar-Jones’ Kya is quite “poised” and “refined” for a character who learned to survive on her own and is known as a “wild child.” Overall, Where the Crawdads Sing is as dark as it is romantic, he says:

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Where the Crawdads Sing is at once a mystery, a romance, a back-to-nature reverie full of gnarled trees and hanging moss, and a parable of women’s power and independence in a world crushed under by masculine will. ... The ending is a genuine jaw-dropper, and while I wouldn’t go near reveling it, I’ll just say that this is a movie about fighting back against male intransigence that has the courage of its outsider spirit.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you’ll be able to check out Where the Crawdads Sing when it hits theaters on Friday, July 22. Until then, be sure to check out our 2022 Movie Release Schedule to see what other films will be gracing a theater near you in the near future.

Heidi Venable is a Content Producer for CinemaBlend, a mom of two and a hard-core '90s kid. She started freelancing for CinemaBlend in 2020 and officially came on board in 2021. Her job entails writing news stories and TV reactions from some of her favorite prime-time shows like Grey's Anatomy and The Bachelor. She graduated from Louisiana Tech University with a degree in Journalism and worked in the newspaper industry for almost two decades in multiple roles including Sports Editor, Page Designer and Online Editor. Unprovoked, will quote Friends in any situation. Thrives on New Orleans Saints football, The West Wing and taco trucks.

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Where the Crawdads Sing Is a Drab Attempt at an Empowerment Saga

I n any story, a girl surviving on her own is a compelling figure for lots of reasons. She’s probably resilient and resourceful, and she defies norms without caring what others think of her. That right there is a thumbnail sketch of Kya, the heroine of Where the Crawdads Sing, the film adaptation of Delia Owens’ 2018 runaway best-seller. Kya Clark has lived alone in the North Carolina marshes for much of her young life, and even though this is the South of the 1960s, the locals eye her with suspicion that wouldn’t be out of place in 17th century Salem. They refer to her, so many times you could make a drinking game out of it, as “that marsh girl,” a pejorative always delivered with a gossipy hiss. She’s an individualist with the accent on the i, an island unto herself who doesn’t need any man—until the one who can truly understand her enters her fiercely guarded orbit.

As a character, Kya is so many fantasies rolled into one—a prickly, wholly self-sufficient being who’s still magnetic enough to attract a classic country hottie—that you’d think she couldn’t possibly fail, either on the page or in a movie. But Olivia Newman’s adaptation of Where the Crawdads Sing crawls along at such a self-consciously sideways pace that even those mystically crooning crayfish are likely to give up on it. Newman is clearly entranced with this material (adapted for the screen by Lucy Alibar), to the point where she seems to be tiptoeing around it, so eager to do it justice that she fails to give it any juice. Onscreen, Kya is so iconoclastically noble that she’s something of a bore, even though the talented actress who plays her as an adult, Daisy Edgar-Jones, tries to steer her into more subtle territory. This is a movie that seems to be striving to please a crowd, but its cornpone humility only becomes wearying.

Kya—played as a child by Jojo Regina—has never gone to school: she tries it once, but in her odd dress and bare feet, unable to spell even the word dog, she’s laughed out of the classroom. Her father (Garret Dillahunt) is an abusive drunkard who drives the rest of her family—mother, brothers and sisters—out of their shack-like house. Kya learns to survive by simply avoiding him, until one day even he disappears. With the help of a few kind humans—including Jumpin’ and Mabel (Sterling Macer Jr. and Michael Hyatt), the Black couple who run the grocery store in town—Kya learns how to take care of herself, ignoring the derisive whispers of the other townsfolk. She can’t read or write, but she’s deeply attuned to the natural world, using her mother’s left-behind watercolors to capture the essence of the mollusks, plants, birds, and insects around her. And though she’s happy enough in her solitude, she finds greater joy in opening up to the one man who truly understands her, Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith)—later to be replaced by a man who’s merely obsessed with her, the town football star and uncaring lug Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson).

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Where the Crawdads Sing review: A glossy, Instagram-primed buffet of cinematic faux-feminism

Film adaptation of delia owens’ murky bestseller depicts rural south carolina as scrubbed so clean you might as well call it #swampcore, article bookmarked.

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Dir: Olivia Newman. Starring: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer, Jr, David Strathairn. 15, 126 minutes.

Welcome to Hollywood – where even an active murder investigation isn’t enough to halt the adaptation of a best-selling book into a glossy, Instagram-primed buffet of cinematic faux-feminism. Where the Crawdads Sing , having sold more than 12 million copies since its publication in 2018, is the very definition of a literary sensation. It was featured as part of Reese Witherspoon’s book club. The actor now serves as the film’s executive producer.

Usually, you’d applaud that kind of sage entrepreneurship. But Delia Owens, who wrote Where the Crawdads Sing , is currently wanted for questioning by the Zambian authorities over a piece of ABC News footage that appears to show the shooting and killing by persons unknown of an unidentified poacher on a wildlife reserve overseen by Owens and her husband, Mark. And anyone who argues that these are merely irrelevant pieces of biography – unproven accusations that would sit more comfortably in the margins of a gossip magazine – is faced with the odd and uncomfortable reality that so much of Where the Crawdads Sing reads as a moral defence for nature’s laws superseding those set down by man.

“A swamp knows all about death, and doesn’t necessarily define it as tragedy, certainly not a sin,” the book’s prologue reads, along with the opening lines of Olivia Newman’s film. Its protagonist, Kya ( Daisy Edgar-Jones ), is steadfastly presented as someone whose tether to her marshland home, in South Carolina, is a talisman of unblemished authenticity. When the body of a local man, Chase Andrews ( Harris Dickinson ), is discovered out in the wilderness, everyone assumes that Kya, the reclusive “Marsh Girl” who’s been systematically abandoned by her entire family, must be responsible. She’s arrested and immediately thrown in jail.

Kya and Chase had some sort of dalliance, a distraction from the toils of her star-crossed, fairytale romance with childhood sweetheart Tate ( Taylor John Smith , who is just as blandly pleasant as the role requires). And it’s that Nicholas Sparks-adjacent, impassioned but oh-so chaste love story that Newman and screenwriter Lucy Alibar seem most heavily invested in. I’m not at all surprised. Owens does have a certain, swoony turn of phrase – “being completely alone was a feeling so vast it echoed” is especially lovely – and scenes of Kya and Tate making out inside a tornado of leaves, or as a flock of seabirds tear their way up to the sky, are earnestly staged by Newman.

She Will review: A story of feminine vengeance that weaves like an arachnid

Does the fact the film largely ignores the book’s treatise on nature and virtue absolve it of all connections to Owens’s real-life controversies? It certainly doesn’t, on an artistic level, improve what’s already contained on the page. Newman’s vision of rural South Carolina is scrubbed so clean you might as well call it #swampcore – the Spanish moss looks bright and pristine, the flower petals on the water almost consciously arranged. Owens, at least, presented the wild as wild. Kya, too, is a young woman treated as if she were feral by those around her, while simultaneously dressing and grooming herself like an Instagram tradwife. There’s a scene where she walks into town, and everyone reacts in shock – this is the first time they’ve ever seen her in makeup and with her hair combed. She looks exactly the same as she does in every other scene in the film.

Where the Crawdads Sing , in short, treats rural poverty as if it were a desirable aesthetic, the ultimate way to reconnect with nature. That’s a problem not only for the obvious reasons. We hear David Strathairn’s kindly lawyer argue in court that Kya never had “the weakness of character” to murder Chase. It feels like we’re being asked to empathise with her less because she’s a social outcast and more because she’s a skinny, pretty, white girl. Edgar-Jones certainly doesn’t skimp on the doe-eyed naivete – post- Normal People and Fresh , there’s a real danger of her being boxed into these kinds of waif roles. Her marginalisation isn’t treated as much more than not being invited to sit at the cool kids’ lunch table.

It feels particularly farcical in the face of how the film’s sole Black characters are treated – a local couple, Jumpin (Sterling Macer Jr) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt), who own a store and care for the abandoned Kya with saintly generosity. Race, in a film set in Sixties South Carolina, does not factor. The film is rigorously insistent that Kya is the only person in her area code who has ever been persecuted in any way.

Again, if anyone had been paying attention to Owens’ past conservation activities, they might have drawn a connection between how patronisingly stereotyped the Black characters are in her book and past allegations of a racist attitude towards the people of Zambia (an acquaintance, in a New Yorker article published in 2010, characterised her views as “Nice continent. Pity about the Africans”). But, hey, who has time to check up on those things when there’s so much money to be made?

‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ is in cinemas from 22 July

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‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ review: How does it compare to the book?

The film has brought delia owens’ bestselling novel to life in the most tragically beautiful way.

Daisy Edgar-Jones attends the premiere of “Where the Crawdads Sing” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

By Lindsey Harper

If you see “Where the Crawdads Sing,” please be prepared to have your heart ripped out and completely stomped on again and again. The film has brought Delia Owens’ bestselling novel to life in the most tragically beautiful way.

The movie follows Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones, who recently starred in “Under The Banner of Heaven” ) as she learns to fend for herself in the marshlands of North Carolina after her family abandons her.
The film bounces back and forth between past and present, with Kya on trial in the present for the murder of local boy Chase Andrews.
Rumors spread quickly about Kya the “marsh girl,” but the audience discovers what she’s actually like through flashbacks, as Kya opens herself to new experiences and creates relationships with sweet, tender-hearted Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith) and privileged yet powerful Chase (Harris Dickinson).

The good parts: “Where the Crawdads Sing” is simply a masterpiece. The cinematography, acting and plot are absolutely enthralling, and it left me hooked within the first 10 minutes.

The movie does a great job portraying the book’s sensitive topics of abuse, neglect, abandonment and rape in an extremely realistic way. You truly feel every emotion throughout this movie — whether you want to or not.
The film remains true to the book. While you don’t have to read the book before seeing the movie, you’ll love it all the more if you have. The characters and location are almost exactly how I pictured them to be in the novel. While I was afraid the actress cast as Kya was too “clean,” Edgar-Jones surprised me and played the role phenomenally — she contrasted Kya’s “marsh girl” title that was assigned to her by society with Kya’s beauty, smarts and unexpected grace.

The cast: Edgar-Jones’ role in Hulu’s “Normal People” as a generally unliked girl with an abusive father seems to have prepared her to play Kya. The actress properly portrays the character’s curiosity, wonder and vulnerability through her expressive brown eyes and mannerisms.

Sterling Macer Jr. is the perfect Jumpin’ — a kindhearted, protective and loving man who looks like he gives great hugs. Macer’s performance might make you wish he was your dad, which is the epitome of Jumpin’s character.
Harris Dickinson makes you absolutely hate his character’s guts, which means he played Chase Andrews perfectly. His thoughtless, slimy demeanor does the character justice.
David Strathairn smashed his role as Kya’s attorney out of the park. Reminiscent of Atticus Finch, Strathairn’s defending speech gives you the hope that he and Kya might just win the case after all.
The bad parts: This movie will give you puffy eyes and a runny nose from the tears that will run down your face. This is an extremely heavy and emotionally draining movie. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but rather a warning so that you know what you’re getting yourself into.
While some are calling the movie’s pacing “clunky” or “slow,” I felt the slower pace was necessary in order for the audience to truly understand Kya’s upbringing and to become invested in her character. Without it, I don’t think I would have been as heartbroken when she went through difficult circumstances. It also matched the vibe of the slow, Southern town the story took place in.

The bottom line: “Where the Crawdads Sing” is an incredibly gripping murder mystery and romance that has a plot unlike any other, with a great twist at the end. If you enjoy good acting, aesthetic cinematography and Taylor Swift , you will love this movie.

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Where the Crawdads Sing: Your First Look at the Lush Adaptation

By Caitlin Brody

Image may contain Human Person Clothing Apparel Evening Dress Fashion Gown Robe Wood and Plywood

When director Olivia Newman first heard about Where the Crawdads Sing, the novel everyone seemed to be talking about, she flat-out didn’t want to read it. At the time, Newman was looking for scripts to helm after her 2018 SXSW breakout film, First Match. She was intrigued by the tale of the mysterious “Marsh Girl” from debut novelist Delia Owens —but while driving around L.A., Newman heard an interview with the author on NPR and learned that Reese Witherspoon was interested in pursuing the novel. “I remember thinking, Oh, my God, this sounds like something I would love…but I’m not even going to read it because I’ll be so heartbroken that I won’t get to make it,” Newman tells Vanity Fair.

In a few short years, Crawdads went on to sell more than 12 million copies, and Newman wound up directing the film, which will premiere in theaters on July 22.

Taylor John Smith as Tate Walker and Daisy EdgarJones as Kya.

A lyrical blend of romance, crime thriller, and survival story, Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya, a young girl in the marsh of North Carolina who yearns for connection after being abandoned by her family. After one of the men Kya becomes romantically entangled with shows up dead, she is even further ostracized from the community, and the town’s previously concealed secrets bubble up to the surface. “I read this novel probably in one day, maybe two days. I just couldn’t put it down,” says Witherspoon, a producer on the film who also selected Crawdads for her famed book club. “I fell in love with Kya as a main character, as a little girl who’s growing up in this very rural area, who’s shunned by society, and is trying to find a way to just save herself, just survive. And the way that Delia Owens wrote this book with such authenticity, you could just tell she really grew up in this place. She really appreciated the nature around her. The book is a love letter to growing up in the South, which for me really resonated because I grew up in New Orleans and Nashville.”

Smith as Tate Walker and EdgarJones as Kya.

Alongside Elizabeth Gabler and Sony’s 3000 Pictures, a newly launched label in partnership with HarperCollins, Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine’s Lauren Neustadter found a screenwriter in Lucy Alibar, the Oscar-nominated scribe behind Beasts of the Southern Wild. Alibar, who is from the Florida Panhandle, had been in the Hello Sunshine offices to discuss optioning another book that didn’t come to fruition. On her way out the door, she was handed a copy of Where the Crawdads Sing.

“Offhand, an executive said, ‘Oh we have this book. It’s from the South. You’re from the South. Why don’t you take a look at it?’” Alibar says. “It was one of those [conversations] that didn’t feel like anything momentous at the time.” As soon as Alibar started reading, she immediately began to picture everything from the palmettos to the house where Kya lives in the marsh. The cinematography jumped right off the page, Alibar says. “As soon as I started reading I could see everything. That happens in my favorite novels. It’s rare that I experience that with a first-time novelist.”

Image may contain Water Outdoors Human Person Fishing Clothing and Apparel

After multiple pitch meetings, the coveted job was hers. Alibar got to work, first by setting up a call with Owens herself. “I knew I loved Delia immediately because she said, ‘Please don’t ruin the Southern accent—I hate that!’” Alibar says, laughing. She regularly spoke to Owens, who got her start as a nature writer, to make sure she was name-checking the right species of fish or birds in her script. “Delia trusted all of us to take her baby and put it out there in front of even more people.”

Alibar spent four months working on the first draft of the screenplay, trying to protect the color-coded note cards that covered her floor from her dog. One of her biggest challenges was grappling with the time jumps in Owens’s novel. “In Delia’s book there’ll be a quick chapter of the present, and then there’s a big blank space, and you turn the page, and that’s how you as a reader know that you’re now in the past again.” Alibar continued to revise up until production, ultimately shaping the script for two years. At this point, she says she could probably recite Owens’s novel by heart, word for word.

Image may contain Clothing Apparel Human Person Harris Dickinson Sleeve Long Sleeve and Sweater

Harris Dickinson as Chase Andrews.

When March 2020 hit, Olivia Newman’s steady job directing episodes of Chicago Fire was put on an indefinite pause. “I was on a call with my reps and was like, ‘What are we going to do? The industry is shut down. How do I pay the bills?’” She and her team took advantage of the downtime by going through scripts, though no one was sure when they’d actually get to be on a set again.

“I was being sent all of these psychological thrillers, and it was too much to be reading this stuff during COVID,” Newman says. “I was like, ‘I need some good love stories!” A friend of hers suggested she watch Normal People, the Hulu romance that launched in the early days of the pandemic, based on Sally Rooney ’s novel and starring a newcomer named Daisy Edgar-Jones. She binged the entire series.

“I want people to love the movie but I really hope it makes them think and ask questions about themselves” says Owens.

It was around that time Newman learned that Hello Sunshine and Sony 3000 Pictures were hunting for a director for Where the Crawdads Sing, the novel she had heard so much about. After getting her hands on a copy and reading it in two days, she landed a meeting. Newman’s debut film, First Match, follows a young girl who grows up in the foster care system and becomes a boxer. It took home the Audience Award at SXSW. On paper, First Match and Crawdads have nothing in common, but Newman thinks otherwise. “Both of these movies are about girls who are facing incredible odds, who are growing up in very hostile environments…and discover an incredible skill that helps them survive,” she says.

Sterling Macer Jr. as Jumpin’ and Michael Hyatt as Mabel.

Michael Hyatt as Mabel and Jojo Regina as young Kya.

Witherspoon saw Newman’s magic right away. “We were so lucky to find Olivia,” she says. “She’s such a dynamic filmmaker. She also just understands the scope of a story like this. And she has these beautiful vistas and sweeping shots that’ll just take your breath away…. She just really built a world that you want to move inside of and be a part of.”

Newman came on board in July 2020 and found her Kya in Daisy Edgar-Jones a few months later. Edgar-Jones had what she describes as a “mad dash” of an audition for the role, reading the entire book the day before her self-taped tryout. After a virtual meeting with Newman and workshopping scenes over Zoom, the director was blown away. “When we saw Daisy read, we all felt it…. It was like hearing Kya’s voice. It was just a stunning, stunning audition,” says Newman, who offered her the part the very next day. “Daisy is just a once-in-a-lifetime talent,” agrees Witherspoon. “She’s just a deep-feeling, sentient human who can really morph herself into so many different characters, but you feel her vulnerability and ferocity in this performance.”

Image may contain Human Person Nature Outdoors Water Land Housing and Building

Edgar-Jones was similarly taken by Kya right away. “She has such an inner strength that I would love to have myself,” says the actress. “She’s complicated, flawed, brilliant…and survives against all odds.” In another lifetime, Witherspoon would have jumped at the chance to play the Marsh Girl herself. “If you’d come to me when I was 23, I would’ve loved to play Kya,” she says. “That's part of why I get excited to be a producer. I get to tell stories that I can’t physically be anymore…but I get to be part of building the teams that bring these stories to life and it’s enormously fulfilling.”

Image may contain Transportation Vehicle Boat Rowboat Canoe Human Person Vessel and Watercraft

Edgar-Jones, who is British, worked with vocal coach Francie Brown to get her North Carolinan drawl just right. “I found the accent weirdly easier than the more general American accent, because it’s such a clear sound,” says Edgar-Jones. But it wasn’t just the accent that she had to nail down. Edgar-Jones had to understand the nuances of Kya’s voice and physicality as the character ages from her teens to her 40s. “I wanted to find a change in her voice when she grows up…and her eye contact was a big thing for me. She’s more fearful and suspicious of people [when she’s younger],” she says. “It was a fun challenge.”

Image may contain Outdoors Nature Water Land Human Person Grass Plant and Sunlight

Filming took place over roughly four months in New Orleans from April to July 2021, on both a soundstage and the far-out marshes of the North Shore. While COVID shutdowns on productions have become commonplace, Crawdads got shut down for a whole other reason: weather. The cast and crew faced lightning storms, torrential rain that flooded their sets, and the brutal New Orleans summer heat. “I never sweated so much in my life,” says Newman. “I learned how wonderful linen is.”

“Delia doesnt write villains and it was very important that there are no villains in this movie. Theyre just people who...

Some crew wore head-to-toe netting to fend off mosquitos and became experts at swatting away vicious horseflies. “It was grueling, but there was also something magical in it, because that’s also Kya’s story,” says Newman. “It made us more connected to the material…[because] this is a story about a young woman who learns how to deal with the elements of her environment. In some ways, it was wonderful to be Kya’s world.”

Image may contain Human Person David Strathairn Suit Coat Clothing Overcoat Apparel Tie Accessories and Accessory

Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya and David Strathairn as Tom.

Off set, Edgar-Jones and her castmates spent their free time kayaking down the canals, partaking in crawfish boils, and being swept up in the music floating down Frenchmen Street. On set, “it felt amazing to be among such an incredibly talented group of women,” she says. “Only when you see that yourself can you go, ‘Maybe I could direct one day too.’”

Newman admits that her heart races a bit whenever someone tells her Crawdads is their favorite book—the pressure!—but is confident that the film captures the heart and soul of the novel. Perhaps Witherspoon puts it best: “I’m always interested in the story where a woman saves herself,” she says. “Because women save themselves every single day.”

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Where the crawdads sing ending explained: why did kya kill chase.

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10 Movie Romances That Were Better In The Book

Where the crawdads sing: david strathairn's 10 best movies, according to ranker, olivia newman interview: where the crawdads sing.

Kya killed Chase in Where the Crawdads Sing because she didn't want to live in fear and be subjected to abuse like her childhood experiences.
Kya saw Chase as a predator and felt her actions were crucial for her own survival.
The title of Where the Crawdads Sing comes from a phrase the author's mother used to say, symbolizing a place far from modern society and closer to nature.

The Where the Crawdads Sing ending is full of twists and turns, and it leaves many viewers questioning not only how Kya killed Chase, but why she did it in the first place. Director Olivia Newman's Where the Crawdads Sing adapts Delia Owens’ best-selling 2018 novel of the same name. The film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya, a North Carolina woman accused of killing her ex-boyfriend Chase Andrews. The end of Where the Crawdads Sing poses many deep moral questions, especially when it comes to why Kya killed Chase.

The Where the Crawdads Sing ending sees Kya being found not guilty by the jury. She freed and gets back together with Tate, spending their time on the marsh as she’s always done, dying there in her old age. It isn’t until after her death that Tate Walker realizes Kya really did kill Chase Andrews , thanks to her leaving the seashell necklace behind in a book. The multilayered Where the Crawdads Sing ending leaves many questions, including why Kya is drawn to feathers, how she killed Chase, and what the core themes of the 2022 mystery thriller actually are.

Where the Crawdads Sing is available to stream on Netflix

15 Best Movies Like Where the Crawdads Sing

With mystery, intrigue, and haunting secrets, there are several other movies that fans of Where The Crawdads Sing should check out next.

Why Kya Killed Chase (& How She Did It)

She didn't want to live in fear.

Chase took advantage of Kya, lied to her, and sexually assaulted her.

The Where the Crawdads Sing ending explained that Kya killed Chase, but it doesn't clearly state her motive or how she killed him . However, the Where the Crawdads Sing book ending reveals why Kya murdered Chase and how she did it to an extent. Kya was a woman of nature, who grew up with an abusive father. Chase took advantage of Kya, lied to her, and sexually assaulted her. No matter how many times she tried to tell him to leave her alone, his ego-driven toxic masculinity would not back off.

Ultimately, Kya killed Chase because she didn’t want to live her life in fear, nor did she want to return to her childhood experiences. She knew first-hand what it was like to live with an abusive man, and the extent of psychological and physical damage that did. Kya wouldn’t allow herself to repeat that mistake, especially not after she finally had her life in order and a sense of freedom. The Where the Crawdad Sings ending explained this element of why Kya killed Chase partially, but it didn't explicitly state the link.

What’s more, Kya saw Chase as a predator, and she was a woman who felt her actions were crucial to her own survival. The townspeople hated her. Kya felt no protection from them, so she had to protect herself. She was raised in the marsh, which means she was at one with nature and didn’t necessarily abide by traditional morality. Kya killed Chase by acting like concerned-but-capable prey — such as crawdads, which are incredibly adept at defending themselves — respond to predators in the animal kingdom. This wasn't a conscious decision on her part, but it's a clear thematic link.

As for how Kya killed Chase in Where the Crawdads Sing , one can only speculate.

As for how Kya killed Chase in Where the Crawdads Sing , one can only speculate. During her trial, Tom Milton explained that Kya wasn’t even in town when he was killed. She would have had to get on the bus from another town, kill Chase in the night (likely by pushing him off the tower with the loose grate), and take another bus at 02:00 back to her hotel.

In the book, it’s at least revealed there was someone in disguise on the bus. This mysterious figure was probably Kya taking the bus back and forth without being noticed. Since Where the Crawdads Sing ending never reveals the exact details of Kya’s actions that night, Milton’s explanation for Chase's death is likely what happened.

Where The Crawdads Sing: The 10 Best Quotes From The Movie

Where the Crawdads Sing features some truly powerful quotes throughout its gripping story, which further highlights Kya's powerful qualities.

The Significance Of The Crawdads Explained

The title is a reference to words from kya's mother.

While the Where the Crawdads Sing ending doesn't explain the significance of its title, a few conclusions can be drawn. The crawdads themselves are water creatures, small, lobster-like animals with shells. Early on in the true story-inspired Where the Crawdads Sing , Kya mentions that people always forget about what’s inside the shell . In many ways, she herself has been in her own shell and the townspeople have forgotten about her, as well as the fact that she is a person with feelings. To that end, Kya essentially hides away from the locals, and she prefers to keep to herself.

While the crawdads don’t actually sing, the lesson passed down from Kya’s mother ensured her survival and allowed her to become one with her surroundings

Crawdads being the title of Owens’ book is significant because it’s a reference to what Kya’s mother always told her — to go deep into the woods and listen to what nature had to tell her. By doing so, Kya became more attuned to nature, always watching creatures and learning about their habits and how they did whatever was needed to survive.

While the crawdads don’t actually sing, the lesson passed down from Kya’s mother ensured her survival and allowed her to become one with her surroundings in the book adaptation Where the Crawdads Sing . She was part of nature herself and the crawdads are a representation of that, as well as Kya’s journey throughout the film.

The Dark Secret Controversy Behind Where The Crawdads Sing

What is the secret controversy surrounding the author of Where the Crawdads Sing? It directly relates to the plot of the novel and film.

Why Kya Loves Feathers So Much

Kya sees herself in the feathers & they connect her to tate.

Kya constantly finds feathers throughout Where the Crawdads Sing , and they have a clear thematic relevance beyond further establishing Kya's harmony with the marshland and the animals that inhabit it. Kya stopping to collect feathers is anthitetical to her relationship to the townspeople, who don’t truly see her and have discarded her as an outsider they don’t want to be associated with. To Kya, the feathers discarded by birds are beautiful, and each is unique too. She draws them, marvels at them, and brings them home with her.

Eventually, Tate and Kya developed a romantic relationship, one that always involved the exchange of feathers as a sign of affection and communication.

Crucially, feathers are of the utmost importance to her because they are a representation of her long-standing relationship with Tate . It's how their friendship began. Tate would bring her feathers if he found them; he knew how much they meant to Kya, and so were a way of showing his feelings for her in a wholesome way. Eventually, Tate and Kya developed a romantic relationship, one that always involved the exchange of feathers as a sign of affection and communication.

Where The Crawdads Sing: Daisy Edgar-Jones' 10 Most Popular Performances, According To IMDb

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Why Kya’s Dad Finally Leaves The Marsh

Kya's father leaves due to his own issues (but this is inconsequential to kya).

Before the Where the Crawdads Sing ending, Kya’s entire family left when she was very young and, for a while, she lived alone with her abusive father. However, Kya’s dad eventually leaves the marsh as well, disappearing for good like Kya's mother and siblings before him. For a while, it seemed as though Kya’s father would remain in the marsh with her, if only because he didn’t have anywhere else to go. In Where the Crawdads Sing , he simply never shows back up onscreen, with the story entirely forgetting about him.

He decides to leave the marsh after receiving a letter from his wife about taking the kids back with her.

Kya's father isn’t shown walking away like her mother and siblings do. Instead, he decides to leave the marsh after receiving a letter from his wife about taking the kids back with her. He burns everything she ever owned and gets drunk, presumably leaving not long after, perhaps coming to unverbalized realizations about himself and his life.

The letter also comes after he has a brief moment with Kya about his time in the military during World War II, which is presumably why he started heavily drinking. However, the moment is cut short by the letter’s arrival, and he quickly reverts to his angry, abusive self.

From Harry Potter to Twilight, books usually have more time to develop a romantic relationship between two characters compared to the adaptations.

The Real Meaning Of Where The Crawdads Sing’s Ending

The movie is about survival and the difference between law and morality.

Nature is an important element of the Where the Crawdads Sing ending, to the point that it’s a character all its own. The marsh surrounds, protects, and comforts Kya. It is her refuge, her home, her love. She is nature and nature is her, and she respects it like no other. The ending of Where the Crawdads Sing is Kya returning things to their natural state.

Killing Chase was a necessity in her eyes, an act she mimicked from the animals who would destroy their predators in a bid to survive. To that end, Where the Crawdads Sing is very much about survival, a lesson to never underestimate those who seem meek and shy. Kya was a social outcast, but Chase was a predator to her.

Human laws couldn't protect Kya, so instead she resorted to the laws of the natural world.

Chase thought he could continue to mistreat Kya, harming her because he could get away with it. But Kya saw herself as part of the nature around her and, when action is taken against her, commits to making things right by fighting back as prey would a predator that hunts them. Aside from that, Where the Crawdads Sing makes it a point to mention how Kya wouldn’t be believed (and likely blamed) when it came to her assault. Human laws couldn't protect Kya, so instead she resorted to the laws of the natural world.

David Strathairn's filmography is full of both critical successes and underrated gems, which Ranker's users have voted upon to select a favorite.

Do Crawdads Sing? Where The Crawdads Sing's Title Meaning

The title comes from the author's mother.

The Where the Crawdads Sing ending does nothing to really explain the bizarre title of the movie or Delia Owens' eponymous novel. The title of the movie is deeply thematically based, but whether or not crawdads actually "sing" is still on the audience's minds. Crawdads, also known as freshwater crayfish, don't actually sing. However, there is a meaning behind the odd title, which is chronicled by Owens in the original Where the Crawdads Sing book.

It basically means a place that is far from modern society, or to depart into nature.

The title " Where the Crawdads Sing " is based on a phrase that Delia Owens' own mother used to say while she was growing up. It basically means a place that is far from modern society, or to depart into nature. The phrase itself is repeated in the novel in Chapter 17. While Kya and Chase are looking for a place to go, Chase suggests that they travel to "where the crawdads sing."

The title is thematically significant as it speaks to Kya's own upbringing in isolation, away from modern society. While there is freedom in her lifestyle, it's the same way of life that gets her convicted of a murder that audiences only learn she's actually guilty of by the Where the Crawdads Sing ending.

Screen Rant interviews Where The Crawdads Sing director Olivia Newman about adapting the hit novel, which stars Daisy Edgar-Jones, for the big screen.

How Director Olivia Newman Explained The Where The Crawdads Sing Ending

She wanted to keep things mysterious.

The Where the Crawdads Sing ending is complex, and ties a movie with many intricate thematic threads up in a difficult-to-unwrap bow. Fortunately, director Olivia Newman has given her own thoughts on the end of Where the Crawdads Sing ending and the meaning she was trying to convey. Speaking to The Wrap in 2022, Olivia Newman delved into the themes of the original Where the Crawdads Sing novel's ending and how she adapted them for the screen. Crucially, Olivia Newman revealed that they almost made changes.

"We did discuss shooting a slightly more explicit version of the ending. The book leaves so much to the imagination, and you get to understand who Kaya is, but never fully. That’s part of what’s mysterious about her. We wanted to maintain that there’s a mystery to it.”

However, the director was clear that her reverence for the original Where The Crawdads Sing ending meant that very little was ultimately changed, especially for the ending:

"We never considered changing the ending. For me, the ending is the story. That ending is everything to understand who Kaya is and the choices that she was faced with.”

Perhaps the most insightful of all were Olivia Newman's comments about the importance of the firefly poem at the end of Where The Crawdads Sing, and how it perhaps gives the biggest clue of all about why Kya killed Chase. The final poem Kya recites, the Firefly, uses heavy symbolism about how male fireflies are attracted to their deaths by false signals from their female mates. It was an aspect of Where the Crawdads Sing that Olivia Newman was notably concerned about the reception of — but only because she wanted to do the source material justice.

“There’s so many amazing parts of Delia’s book and it was a very hard and painful decision of what to include in the movie and what we had to leave out. We hope that [Kya’s] poetry comes through in the visual language and in the way that she talks and the way that she observes the world. We didn’t feel we were losing too much of telling her character’s story if we couldn’t fit that into the movie.”

Certainly, Kyra reciting her poems are the points when Where the Crawdads Sing becomes its most stylistic. Going by Olivia Newman's comments, however, it's these moments that actually truly explain the Where the Crawdads Sing ending, and why Kya killed Chase.

Where the Crawdads Sing

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Where the Crawdads Sing is a dramatic mystery film directed by Olivia Newman (First Match, Chicago Fire) and based on the 2018 novel of the same name, set in the 1950s, the film centers around Catherine "Kya" Clark (Daisy-Edgar Jones), a girl abandoned at an early age who is forced to raise herself in the marshes of North Carolina, adapting entirely to the wilderness. After meeting a young boy named Tate Walker, who teaches her the ways of the world by lending her books and teaching her valuable skills, she can sustain herself. However, as Kya enters her late teen years, a whirlwind romance with a young quarterback somehow puts her on trial for murder. Kya will have to prove her innocence to continue living in a world she only now has begun to understand.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

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Where the Crawdads Sing review: a bland murder mystery

For a film that takes such great pains to immerse viewers in the environment of one specific corner of the United States, Where the Crawdads Sing is shockingly bland. Adapted from Delia Owens’ best-selling 2018 novel, the new film explores the life of a young woman who is forced to raise herself in a marsh in North Carolina. The film, which takes place throughout the 1950s and 1960s, spends a considerable amount of time discussing and showcasing the murky wetland that emerges as its protagonist’s unlikely home.

A suspicious death

A difficult life, a disappointing mystery.

However, Where the Crawdads Sing never truly takes advantage of its backwoods setting. Even when a shocking murder in the film’s central marsh threatens to turn the life of its young heroine upside down, Where the Crawdads Sing remains surprisingly unimaginative, and its refusal to commit to the darker gothic elements of its story renders the film lifeless. Consequently, what could have been a moody and immersive murder mystery instead ends up feeling more like a safe cross between a late-era Nicholas Sparks adaptation and an uninspired, psychologically thin character study.

Where the Crawdads Sing follows Catherine “Kya” Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones from the Hulu series Normal People ), a young woman who is placed under arrest for the suspected murder of Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) in the film’s opening prologue. After a kind-hearted lawyer (David Strathairn) subsequently offers to represent her, Kya quickly finds herself in the middle of a trial that has the power to determine her entire future. From that point on, Where the Crawdads Sing adopts a multi-timeline structure, one that allows it to explore Kya’s life leading up to her arrest while frequently cutting back to the events of her present-day trial.

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Where the Crawdads Sing trailer reveals love and murder

Through the film’s lengthy flashback sequences, we are given glimpses into Kya’s difficult childhood and the years she spent living under the thumb of her abusive father (Garret Dillahunt). After her father unexpectedly abandons her, the film follows Kya as she is forced to learn how to survive on her own in the unforgiving marsh she calls home. Where the Crawdads Sing then picks up with Kya years later when she begins to attract the attention of not only a handsome young man named Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith) but also Harris Dickinson’s Chase Andrews, the very man whose death will send her present-day life spiraling into chaos.

Between its central murder, unique marshland setting, and potentially tense courtroom subplot, Where the Crawdads Sing has all the necessary ingredients to be an involving, psychologically dark murder mystery. However, the film itself is oddly lighter, both visually and tonally, than its premise would have you believe. Its approach to violence ends up feeling particularly lacking, with director Olivia Newman willing to depict the various horrific acts that are perpetrated against Kya by the men around her but not the payback that she is justifiably willing to unleash when the need arises.

The film’s strange attitude toward its violence is only made more apparent by its reluctance to truly lean into the darker aspects of its story. The marsh that Edgar-Jones’ Kya calls home is brightly lit throughout most of the film, which robs the environment of its potentially gothic atmosphere. Newman, instead, chooses to shoot Where the Crawdads Sing ’s numerous marsh sequences as if the environment had been pulled out of a fairytale, with light streaming in from all directions and flowers blooming everywhere you look. It’s a choice that makes the film’s overall aesthetic feel incongruous with its undeniably grim story.

Lucy Alibar’s flashback-heavy script, meanwhile, succeeds at turning Where the Crawdads Sing into a comprehensive portrait of its protagonist’s life, but it also forces the film to move at an unbearably languid pace. After diving right into the present-day, investigative side of its story, Where the Crawdads Sing goes on to spend most of its runtime in the past, following Edgar-Jones’ Kya as she develops the skills that’ll enable her to live on her own and the relationships that’ll turn her life into an emotionally exhausting mess. Unfortunately, the film’s intense focus on Kya’s past also leads to the courtroom scenes that she shares with Strathairn’s Tom feeling like footnotes in Where the Crawdads Sing ’s story.

That especially becomes the case during the film’s second act, which introduces Smith’s Tate and Dickinson’s Chase as well as the fundamentally different romantic relationships that Kya forms with both of them over time. It’s in this section that Where the Crawdads Sing becomes a drawn-out romantic melodrama that, despite Edgar-Jones’ palpable chemistry with both Smith and Dickinson, only serves to further highlight the monotonous nature of the film’s plot.

The few emotionally affecting moments that Where the Crawdads Sing does deliver all come from Edgar-Jones’ capable performance as Kya. Despite being forced to say multiple lines that, frankly, work better in a book than they do in a film, Edgar-Jones still manages to make Kya’s strength and insecurities feel real. She brings a quiet steadiness to her character that not only adds further authenticity to the film’s characterization of her but also makes it easy to buy into some of the more questionable or difficult decisions that she is forced to make throughout it.

The fact that she manages to do so in a film that so often feels like it is running on autopilot is a testament to Edgar-Jones’ increasingly obvious abilities as a performer. Unlike its lead star though, Where the Crawdads Sing fails to bring the intensity that its story that it so dearly requires. The film doesn’t fully commit to any of the aspects of its plot or setting that could have helped it craft a clearer identity for itself, and its disinterest in Kya’s courtroom experiences only makes everything that happens throughout it feel all the more inconsequential.

Therefore, while it works as a showcase for Daisy Edgar-Jones, her performance isn’t enough to stop Where the Crawdads Sing from getting lost in the weeds.

Where the Crawdads Sing hits theaters on Friday, July 15.

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Where the Crawdads Sing: how to watch at home, trailers, cast, plot, review and all we know

Where the Crawdads Sing was adapted by Reese Witherspoon's production company — here's where it will be available to stream at home.

Daisy Edgar-Jones hides behind a tree in Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdad's Sing , an adaptation of Delia Owen’s novel starring Daisy Edgar-Jones , landed in movie theatres in July 2022, quickly becoming one of the top 2022 movies . And soon you will be able to stream the movie from the comfort of your own home.

A New York Times bestseller and Amazon's most-sold fiction book for all of 2019, Where the Crawdads Sing , has been adapted by Reece Witherspoon's production company Hello Sunshine after she read it as part of her Instagram book club in September 2018.

The actor said that making the film was 'one of those really exciting, once-in-a-lifetime opportunities' after falling in love with the story that follows Kya Clark, a sensitive, intelligent young woman who has survived for years on her own in the marshes of Barkley Cove, North Carolina.

Where The Crawdads Sing review: read what our film expert thinks of the movie

The story takes a dark turn when a man Kya was once involved with is found dead and she becomes the lead suspect. However, Reece is no stranger to thrilling crime dramas after making shows and movies like Big Little Lies, Little Fires Everywhere and Gone Girl .

The movie also features an incredible female-led team, with Olivia Newman ( First Match, FBI, Chicago Fire , and Chicago PD ) directing, while Lucy Alibar, who is best known for co-writing the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild , has written the script.

Here is everything we know about Where the Crawdads Sing including where you can now watch the movie at home...

Where the Crawdads Sing release date

Where the Crawdads Sing landed in theatres in the US and UK in July 2022.

You can now watch the movie from the comfort of your own home because it landed on Netflix worldwide on November 12, 2022.

What happens in Where the Crawdads Sing?

Set in North Carolina in the 1950s and 1960s, the film follows the coming-of-age of Kya, a young girl branded 'Marsh Girl' by locals after she learns to live independently after being abandoned by her family as a child.

After fending for herself and getting to know the ecosystems in the marshlands like no one else, Kya starts putting her knowledge down on paper and illustrating her own books. But her lonely existence leaves her an outcast in the local town, and so when a local man is found murdered, Kya quickly finds herself the prime suspect for the crime.

The official synopsis from Sony Pictures states: " Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya, an abandoned girl who raised herself to adulthood in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' haunted Barkley Cove, isolating the sharp and resilient Kya from her community.

"Drawn to two young men from town, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world; but when one of them is found dead, she is immediately cast by the community as the main suspect. As the case unfolds, the verdict as to what actually happened becomes increasingly unclear, threatening to reveal the many secrets that lay within the marsh."

Is there a trailer for Where the Crawdads Sing?

There are lots of trailers for the movie... some teaser trailers and the full one that was released earlier this year.

The most recent release can be found on the Fandango Twitter page and sees a clip of Kya trying to flee from the police. A boat chase ensues and she tries to throw the officers off the scent by diving into the river...

In this exclusive clip from #WhereTheCrawdadsSing Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) tries to slip the grip of the law. See it only in theaters July 15.Tickets are on sale now! 🦞🎟 —> https://t.co/DOp34Hi4CJ pic.twitter.com/Edzkt6Vfhs June 23, 2022

A series of teaser trailers have also been released and you can watch them all below.

The first is titled 'Thriller'

The second is called 'Survive'

The third is called 'Danger'

The forth is called 'Best Seller'

And the fifth is called 'Making Magic'

The full trailer shows Kya growing up alone in the marshes as she is forced to fend for herself, only to be later accused of murder when a man she was involved with turns up dead. The trailer sees Kya standing trial for the crime, while her voiceover vows that she is 'going to get out of this, one way or another...'

Earlier this year a teaser trailer was released. This one sees clips of the film played out while Kya can be heard saying: "Way out yonder where the crawdads sing, the marsh knows one thing above all else: every creature does what it must to survive."

The trailer also debuts the brand new song by Taylor Swift which she wrote for the movie.

Who is in the Where the Crawdads Sing cast?

Daisy egdar-jones.

Daisy Egdar-Jones is set to take on her biggest ever role playing grown-up Kya. After shooting to fame as Marianne in BBC and Hulu drama Normal People , she has most recently appeared in 2022 Netflix movie Fresh .

Jojo Regina

Jojo Regina will star in the film as young Kya, the 10-year-old has previously starred in the TV show The Chosen and the short film Delight .

Taylor John Smith

Taylor John Smith ( Sharp Objects ) stars as Kya’s childhood friend and biggest supporter, Tate Walker. Tate is from Barkley Cove and is Kya’s primary romantic interest, having known her since she was a young girl.

Harris Dickinson

Harris Dickinson ( The King’s Man ) will play Chase Andrews. Chase is a popular young man who lives in Barkley Cove and is famous in town as one the best former quarterbacks the area has ever seen.

Who else stars in the movie?

David Strathairn ( Nomadland ) will star as Tom Milton, while Garret Dillahunt ( Army of the Dead ) takes on the role of Pa, Ahna O’Reilly ( Bombshell ) plays Ma, Michael Hyatt ( Snowfall ) plays Mabel and Eric Ladin ( Bosch ) will star as Eric Chastain.

Where the Crawdad's Sing music

Taylor Swift has written a song especially for the movie called "Carolina" after falling in love with the Where the Crawdads Sing book a few years ago.

She said on social media: " Where The Crawdads Sing is a book I got absolutely lost in when I read it years ago. As soon as I heard there was a film in the works starring the incredible @daisyedgarjones and produced by the brilliant @reesewitherspoon, I knew I wanted to be a part of it from the musical side.

"I wrote the song "Carolina" alone and asked my friend @aarondessner to produce it. I wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerizing story."

Below you can hear the full song and watch the music video that accompanies it...

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Claire is Assistant Managing Editor at What To Watch and has been a journalist for over 15 years, writing about everything from soaps and TV to beauty, entertainment, and even the Royal Family. After starting her career at a soap magazine, she ended up staying for 13 years, and over that time she’s pulled pints in the Rovers Return, sung karaoke in the Emmerdale village hall, taken a stroll around Albert Square, and visited Summer Bay Surf Club in sunny Australia.

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Is ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ a True Story? How Delia Owens’ Possible Involvement in a Murder May Have Inspired the Book

Where to stream:.

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Stream it or skip it: ‘where the crawdads sing’ on hulu, a period melodrama that's based on the best-selling novel, get lucky: the 7 best irish shows on netflix, hulu, and prime video to watch on st. patrick's day, 7 shows like ‘one day’ if you're in the mood for romance and heartbreak colliding.

Good news: Where the Crawdads Sing , the movie based on the best-selling 2018 novel by Delia Owens, is now available to buy on digital platforms like Amazon Prime , Vudu , Google Play , iTunes , and more. Bad news: Delia Owens might be a witness to, or a co-conspirator, in a murder that maybe, possibly inspired the book!

Let’s back up. Based on the mystery novel of the same name, Where the Crawdads Sing follows two timelines. The first tells the story of a girl named Kya (played by Normal People star Daisy Edgar-Jones in the movie) growing up in North Carolina in the 1950s, and the second follows the investigation of the murder of a local celebrity in that same North Carolina town. The two timelines slowly start to come together, until a culprit in the murder case is finally revealed.

Though the movie is based on a fictional novel, it’s the kind of story that feels lived in and real. And in this case, the sense that Where the Crawdads Sing might be based on a true story isn’t totally off base. Read on to find out what we know about the real-life murder case that may have possibly inspired Owens.

Warning: Where the Crawdads Sings spoilers ahead.

Is Where the Crawdads Sing based on a true story?

No. Where the Crawdads Sing is based on Delia Owens’ fictional 2018 novel. The characters and plot are not based on real people or real events.

That said! There is a somewhat wild rumor that Where the Crawdads Sing reflects some of the themes of Owens’ own experience with an unresolved murder that took place in 1996 in the south-central African nation of Zambia. It’s a long, complicated story, which has been extensively reported by Jeffrey Goldberg in The Atlantic and The New Yorker . It’s a murder that has never been solved, and Owens is still wanted for questioning—as a witness, not a suspect—by Zambian authorities.

The basic gist is this: Delia Owens and her then-husband Mark Owens spent an extensive amount of time in Zambia in the ’90s, serving as sort-of unofficial anti-poaching authorities. A 1996 ABC News segment titled “Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story,” captured on film the murder of a so-called poacher, who was shot point-blank while lying injured on the ground. The victim in the video has never been identified, though the ABC segment identified him as a “trespasser.” It was brushed over, in favor of portraying the Owens as animal-loving American conservationists, fighting for a just cause.

When Goldberg interviewed the ABC cameraman Chris Everson for the 2010 New Yorker piece, Everson claimed the person who fired the fatal shot was Christopher Owens, Mark Owens’ son from a previous marriage. Furthermore, Goldberg reported that, according to Zambian police, Mark Owens helped to dispose of the body in a nearby lagoon. Delia Owens disputed these details when Goldberg interviewed her in 2010, saying, “The only thing Mark ever did was throw firecrackers out of his plane, but just to scare poachers, not to hurt anyone,” and, “Chris wasn’t there. We don’t even know where that event took place. It was horrible, a person being shot like that.” Lawyers for Mark and Chris also denied any wrongdoing to Goldberg.

Goldberg further reported that, nevertheless, all three Owens are still wanted for questioning in connection to that murder, as well as for other possible criminal activities in Zambia. Said the Zambia director of public prosecutions, Lillian Shawa-Siyuni, “There is no statute of limitations on murder in Zambia. They are all wanted for questioning in this case, including Delia Owens.”

This brings us to Where the Crawdads Sing , a book that is—spoiler alert!—about a young woman from North Carolina who is accused of murdering a local celebrity in her fictional town. The plot twist? She did! She’s guilty! (The murder is portrayed as a righteous one, committed in self-defense against attempted rape.) “I read the book in 2019,” Goldberg wrote in his recent Atlantic article. “I was surprised that its themes so obviously echoed aspects of Delia Owens’ life in Zambia.” One such similarity was the fact that a cat in the novel is named after a man the Owens knew in Zambia, Sunday Justice.

Obviously, it’s a stretch to say that these connections to the Owens’ experience in Zambia mean that Where the Crawdads Sing is based on a true story. But it certainly is… interesting to avoid questioning for an unsolved murder, and to then write a whole book about a woman accused of murder, who did, in fact, murder someone! Just something to think about.

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If you walk into “Where The Crawdads Sing” looking for a nice animated movie about a shellfish choir, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING

Running time: 125 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sexual content and some violence including a sexual assault.) In theaters.

No, the sappy film is about a beautiful woman who lives in a marsh. And don’t you forget it! Based on controversial author Delia Owens’ popular novel, when the dialogue isn’t sanitizing abuse and rape, it’s waxing poetic about sea creatures, grass and owls.

Long stretches of floral language is OK in a book. On-screen, however, it’s pretentious. A slog in a bog.

Sure, we always love to see Daisy Edgar-Jones, the talented British actress who hit it big with the brilliant miniseries “Normal People.” But, unlike that layered show, “Crawdads” gives her nothing to chew on except a Southern accent.

We first meet her character Kya as she is arrested for the murder of a man named Chase, who fell to his death from a watchtower. To explain what happened, she tells her lawyer, an Atticus Finch type played by David Strathairn, her overly literary life story.

Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kya, who townsfolk call "the marsh girl," in "Where The Crawdad Sings."

Little Kya (Jojo Regina) lives in a cabin far from a North Carolina town — you gotta use a boat to get anywhere — with her mom, siblings and a cruel father in the 1950s. When they gradually all run from their dangerous situation, including no-good pop, she’s left to fend for herself.

Grown-up and gorgeous, she is shunned by the town like Hester Prynne and derisively called “marsh girl.” North Carolina, we learn, is a bizarro state in which beautiful, well-dressed people are hated. But not by Kya’s freakishly kind childhood friend named Tate (Taylor John Smith), who starts wooing her. It’s a match made in marshland: She’s obsessed with scallops and he wants to be a biologist.

Men boat up to Kya’s house in the middle of the night as if auditioning for an aquatic “Say Anything,” and next in line is Chase (Harris Dickinson), a jerk.

Her choice is obvious, but it takes some 90 minutes of overripe dialogue to get there.

Tate (Taylor John Smith) and Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones) are smitten.

Tate and Chase are crudely drawn characters on-screen — an angel and devil — and we never fully embrace either. Because the story is about a woman’s painful struggle, the film is afraid of ever becoming fully romantic. The only thing Kya, a keen artist, is in love with is painting pictures of snails.

Strange, though, how hesitant director Olivia Newman is with depictions of violence. Every deplorable slap and punch is safely presented, and are overcome with unbelievable ease. Early in the movie, one of Kya’s brothers — a little boy — walks out of the house having just been pummeled by their dad. Bruised, bloodied and blasé, his casual demeanor suggests he just left the candy store.

Mabel (Michael Hyatt) runs a local shop and helps Kya.

Also bothersome are the characters Mabel (Michael Hyatt) and Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.), flatly written black shop owners who exist solely to console and protect Kya and have no other defining details or characteristics.

Providing a hint of redemption is Edgar-Jones, a naturally vulnerable actress who can turn the shallowest of material into something deep. We like Kya and are with her every step of the way, even though at over two hours there about 50 steps too many.

After an interminable windup (more sweeping shots of egrets!), the bombshell ending is rewarding.

Yet, I suspect it’s a lot more fun to arrive at on a Kindle.

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Our review of Where the Crawfish Sing: The Salient Marsh
Movie Review: “Where the Crawdads Sing,” the audience naps
‘Where the Crawfish Sing’: Watch Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John
‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ review: Overblown and tedious Southern drama
Where the Crawdads Sing Movie: What We Know (Release Date, Cast, Movie
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COMMENTS

Where the Crawdads Sing movie review (2022)
For a film about a brave woman who's grown up in the wild, living by her own rules, "Where the Crawdads Sing" is unusually tepid and restrained. And aside from Daisy Edgar-Jones ' multi-layered performance as its central figure, the characters never evolve beyond a basic trait or two. We begin in October 1969 in the marshes of fictional ...
Where the Crawdads Sing
Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 08/31/23 Full Review Brandon Richardson For the genre/type of movie, it is, Where the Crawdads Sing is pretty decent. Daisy Edgar-Jones was the ...
Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)
Where the Crawdads Sing: Directed by Olivia Newman. With Daisy Edgar-Jones, Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, David Strathairn. A woman who raised herself in the marshes of the Deep South becomes a suspect in the murder of a man with whom she was once involved.
'Where the Crawdads Sing' Review: A Wild Heroine, a Soothing Tale
July 13, 2022. Where the Crawdads Sing. Directed by Olivia Newman. Drama, Mystery, Thriller. PG-13. 2h 5m. Find Tickets. When you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our ...
Where the Crawdads Sing
Full Review | Oct 3, 2022. Scott Tobias The Reveal (Substack) TOP CRITIC. The PG-13-ness of Where the Crawdads Sing buffs every rough edge off this story—the abuse, the abandonment, the betrayal ...
'Where the Crawdads Sing' Review: A Compelling Wild-Child Tale
'Where the Crawdads Sing' Review: The Bestselling Novel Turned Into a Compelling Wild-Child Tale Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kya, the venerable Marsh Girl, in a mystery as dark as it is romantic.
Movie Review: Where the Crawdads Sing
Forget even the jailhouse cat. The movie is a snake that eats itself. Movie Review: In Where the Crawdads Sing, a film adaptation of Delia Owens's runaway bestseller, a young North Carolina ...
Where the Crawdads Sing (film)
Where the Crawdads Sing is a 2022 American mystery drama film based on the 2018 novel of the same name by Delia Owens.It was directed by Olivia Newman from a screenplay by Lucy Alibar and was produced by Reese Witherspoon and Lauren Neustadter. Daisy Edgar-Jones leads the cast, featuring Taylor John Smith, Harris Dickinson, Michael Hyatt, Sterling Macer Jr., Jojo Regina, Garret Dillahunt, Ahna ...
'Where the Crawdads Sing' review: Good book turned bad movie
Review: 'Where the Crawdads Sing' is the latest literary sensation turned ho-hum movie. Daisy Edgar-Jones and Taylor John Smith in "Where the Crawdads Sing.". (Michele K. Short / Sony) By ...
Where The Crawdads Sing Review: Gorgeous Visuals Clash With
The gorgeously-shot movie is incredibly faithful to the book and will no doubt delight those who have eagerly devoured its pages. 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. Picking up in 1969, the sleepy town of Barkley Cove, North Carolina ...
Where the Crawdads Sing Movie Review
Budweiser. Parents need to know that Where the Crawdads Sing is a romantic mystery/drama based on Delia Owens' bestselling 2018 novel. It's set in the coastal marshes of 1950s-'60s North Carolina, where young Kya is dubbed "Marsh Girl" because she lives in near-complete isolation. As a young adult, Kya (Daisy Edgar….
Where The Crawdads Sing Review
Published on 22 07 2022. Original Title: Where The Crawdads Sing. Translating a much-loved novel to the big screen is always a tricky task. With Delia Owens' Where The Crawdads Sing, which has ...
Where The Crawdads Sing Reviews Are In, See What Critics Are Saying
Delia Owens took the literary world by storm with her 2018 novel Where the Crawdads Sing, and it was little surprise when the film got picked up to be adapted as a movie. Reese Witherspoon is a ...
Where the Crawdads Sing Can't Sell Its Empowerment Fantasy
Read more reviews by Stephanie Zacharek. The movie opens with a dead body, promising one humdinger of a steamy Southern gothic. But Where the Crawdads Sing is too reverential, too tasteful, for ...
Where the Crawdads Sing movie review: A glossy, Instagram-primed buffet
Where the Crawdads Sing review: A glossy, Instagram-primed buffet of cinematic faux-feminism Film adaptation of Delia Owens' murky bestseller depicts rural South Carolina as scrubbed so clean ...
'Where the Crawdads Sing' review: How does the movie compare to the
The good parts: "Where the Crawdads Sing" is simply a masterpiece. The cinematography, acting and plot are absolutely enthralling, and it left me hooked within the first 10 minutes. The movie does a great job portraying the book's sensitive topics of abuse, neglect, abandonment and rape in an extremely realistic way.
Where the Crawdads Sing: Your First Look at the Lush Adaptation
Taylor John Smith as Tate Walker and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya. A lyrical blend of romance, crime thriller, and survival story, Where the Crawdads Sing follows Kya, a young girl in the marsh of ...
Where The Crawdads Sing Ending Explained: Why Did Kya Kill Chase?
The Where the Crawdads Sing ending is full of twists and turns, and it leaves many viewers questioning not only how Kya killed Chase, but why she did it in the first place. Director Olivia Newman's Where the Crawdads Sing adapts Delia Owens' best-selling 2018 novel of the same name. The film stars Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya, a North Carolina woman accused of killing her ex-boyfriend Chase Andrews.
Where the Crawdads Sing review: a bland murder mystery
By Alex Welch July 15, 2022. For a film that takes such great pains to immerse viewers in the environment of one specific corner of the United States, Where the Crawdads Sing is shockingly bland ...
WHERE THE CRAWDADS SING
The worldwide phenomenon and best-selling book is coming to the big screen. 🛶 🌿 Watch the trailer for Where The Crawdads Sing, featuring an original song f...
Where the Crawdads Sing: everything we know about the movie
Kya is named prime suspect in a local murder. (Image credit: Sony Pictures) The official synopsis from Sony Pictures states: " Where the Crawdads Sing tells the story of Kya, an abandoned girl who raised herself to adulthood in the dangerous marshlands of North Carolina. For years, rumors of the 'Marsh Girl' haunted Barkley Cove, isolating the ...
Is Where the Crawdads Sing based on a true story?
Good news: Where the Crawdads Sing, the movie based on the best-selling 2018 novel by Delia Owens, is now available to buy on digital platforms like Amazon Prime, Vudu, Google Play, iTunes, and more.
'Where The Crawdads Sing' review: Overblown and tedious drama
Based on controversial author Delia Owens' popular novel, when the dialogue isn't sanitizing abuse and rape, it's waxing poetic about sea creatures, grass and owls. Long stretches of floral ...

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