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

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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 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’ review: How does it compare to the book?

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

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.

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 Reviews

What means to be a whodunit that leaves the reveal to the very, very end, Where the Crawdads Sing, directed by Olivia Newman, instead sucks all of the mystery out of a murder trial that offers no alternatives to the theory at hand.

Full Review | Jul 29, 2024

It’s far more concerned with binary portrayals of good and bad, presenting them as overly whimsical or toxic respectively. It’s a promising concept that translates into a frustrating experience of tonal incoherence.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 15, 2024

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

• Entertainment
• What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding <i>Where the Crawdads Sing</i>

What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding Where the Crawdads Sing

I t had all the makings of a publishing Cinderella story. A first-time novelist, making her fiction debut at age 70, wrote a coming-of-age thriller that unexpectedly became a best-selling juggernaut, was selected by Reese Witherspoon for her book club, and was snapped up to be made into a feature film . After Delia Owens published Where the Crawdads Sing in the summer of 2018, appetite only grew for the story of Kya, a girl who raises herself in a North Carolina marsh after being abandoned by her family, only to find herself accused of a grisly murder as a young woman. The movie , produced by Witherspoon with Owens’ involvement and directed by Olivia Newman, premiered in theaters July 15 and is now available to stream on Netflix. Witherspoon told Vanity Fair in March that the novel “is a love letter to growing up in the South.”

But Owens’ runaway success belies an ugly history—one that has not only cast a shadow on her life in the literary spotlight, but also predated it. As was thoroughly documented in Jeffrey Goldberg’s nearly 20,000-word exposé for the New Yorker in 2010, and then detailed again by Laura Miller for Slate in 2019 , Owens’ own past includes an unsolved murder and subsequent scrutiny—just like Kya’s present.

In 1996, ABC debuted a special that centered on Owens and her husband at the time, Mark Owens, and a tragic incident in Zambia, where they were working as conservationists. The special, “ Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story ,” captured escalating tensions between the couple and poachers. In the episode, an alleged poacher was shot and killed on-camera. The cameraman who filmed the incident told Goldberg that he believed Owens’ stepson Christopher Owens committed the murder. The author told Goldberg in 2010 that her stepson was not present when the man was shot. (A representative for the author did not respond to a request for comment; a representative for Sony, the film’s distributor, canceled scheduled interviews with Owens, Witherspoon, Newton, and star Daisy Edgar-Jones after an interview with screenwriter Lucy Alibar in which TIME asked about Owens and the controversy surrounding the Zambia murder. Alibar said she was not familiar with the controversy.)

In Miller’s Slate article and a new Atlantic piece by Goldberg , published this week, both journalists drew comparisons between the author’s personal story and the story told in the book. “Having her heroine stand accused of murder echoes the Owens’ Zambian experience and the subsequent ordeal of becoming the subject of a 18,000-word exposé in a prominent magazine,” Miller wrote.

For his July 11 piece, Goldberg spoke to Zambia’s director of public prosecutions, Lillian Shawa-Siyuni, who confirmed that Mark, Delia, and Christopher Owens are still wanted for questioning. “There is no statute of limitations on murder in Zambia,” Siyuni told Goldberg. “They are all wanted for questioning in this case, including Delia Owens.”

Here’s what to know about Owens, her career before her hit novel, and the controversy that surrounds Where the Crawdads Sing .

Delia Owens’ career before Crawdads

Like her protagonist Kya, Owens has long been a lover of nature and wildlife. She studied zoology at the University of Georgia and holds a doctorate in Animal Behavior from the University of California, Davis. In 1984, she published a nonfiction book with Mark Owens called Cry of the Kalahari . The book recounted their experiences living in the Kalahari Desert, where the couple moved in 1974 to study brown hyenas and lions for seven years. The book won the John Burroughs Medal for Best Natural History Book, and the Owenses were applauded for their reflections on what it was like to live among animals in isolation.

The duo went on to write two more books about their time studying wilderness in Africa: The Eye of the Elephant, published in 1992, and Secrets of the Savanna , published in 2006. During their time abroad, the couple became involved in anti-poaching work and, as a result, developed the North Luangwa Conservation Project. The aim of the project, according to the website for the couple’s foundation , the Owens Foundation for Wildlife Conservation, was to “rehabilitate and conserve the 2,400 square-mile North Luangwa National Park of Zambia” in response to the soaring number of elephants and rhinoceroses that were being killed by poachers in the area. The couple returned to the U.S. in 1996, and later turned their attention toward domestic grizzly bear conservation efforts.

A 2019 newsletter for the Owens foundation noted that Delia Owens would be taking a “step back” from the organization.

Crawdads ’ unexpected success story

In the summer of 2018, Delia Owens released her debut novel Where the Crawdads Sing . Publisher Putnam originally printed a modest 28,000 copies; no one anticipated the runaway hit the novel would become, aided by its selection as the September 2018 Reese’s Book Club pick .

Crawdads became a fixture in book clubs across the country, and the New York Times reported that by the end of 2019, the novel had sold more print copies than any other adult title that year, beating out new releases by Margaret Atwood and Stephen King . Peter Hildick-Smith, the president of book audience research firm Codex Group, told the Times that the novel had “defied the new laws of gravity.”

In its first year, Where the Crawdads Sing sold more than 1.1 million copies, according to Publisher’s Weekly . Now, roughly four years after its release, that number has exceeded 12 million. Its momentum has not slowed. Last December, the book landed on the New York Public Library’s Top 10 Checkouts of 2021 . And on TikTok, the popularity of #BookTok content is driving a new audience to the novel—the hashtag #wherethecrawdadssing has garnered over 29 million views on the app. Today, the book still tops the New York Times best seller list, and it has been on the list for more than 167 weeks.

The book is mired in controversy

In 2019, just as Crawdads was becoming a true sensation, journalist Laura Miller revisited the controversial aspects of Owens’ past for Slate in a story that went viral. In the piece, Miller offered a comprehensive look at Owens and her former husband’s activities in Zambia, where they worked for several years. “What most of Crawdads ’ fans don’t know,” Miller wrote, “is that Delia and Mark Owens have been advised never to return to one of the African nations where they once lived and worked, Zambia, because they are wanted for questioning in a murder that took place there decades ago.” Miller referenced Goldberg’s 2010 piece, where he wrote that “the American Embassy warned the Owenses not to enter Zambia until the controversy was resolved.”

The tragedy took place in 1995 and was captured by an ABC film crew that was following the Owenses for a documentary originally intended to be about the couple’s conservationist efforts. The footage then became the Turning Point special “Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story.” In the special, an unidentified man—referred to in the episodes as a “suspected poacher”—is shot at by a person whose face is blurred. More shots are fired off screen, and his body goes still.

After the special aired in 1996, the Zambian government opened a police investigation. The body was never found. A cameraman claimed that the author’s stepson, Christopher Owens, was the one who fired the gun. Delia Owens has publicly denied this, saying that Christopher was not present at the scene. “People say Chris did this because they got confused, because the cameraman was named Chris, too,” Owens told Goldberg for his 2010 New Yorker piece.

There have been no charges against the Owenses. In his most recent Atlantic piece, Goldberg wrote that he spoke to Zambian police officials who were “keen to interrogate Mark and Christopher Owens, but also believe that Delia Owens should be interrogated as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felony crimes.”

In his 2010 piece, Goldberg also covered the complicated relationships the Owenses had with local scouts and poachers, and noted that the couple’s written works “on occasion convey archaic ideas about Africans.” Miller drew a parallel between that observation and how Owens depicted Black characters in Crawdads , referencing a scene in which Jumpin’, one of the few characters who shows Kya any kindness, wants to notify the police after he sees that she has been assaulted. “The idea that any Black man living in the rural South during the early ’60s would seriously consider reporting to local law enforcement the attempted rape of a white woman by the son of a prominent white family is ludicrous,” Miller wrote.

Owens has distanced herself from the Zambia murder, and rarely discusses it with the press. In 2019, she told the New York Times that she was not involved in the shooting. “It’s painful to have that come up, but it’s what Kya had to deal with, name calling,” she said.

Sign up for More to the Story , TIME’s weekly entertainment newsletter, to get the context you need for the pop culture you love.

Backlash to the film

The creative team behind the Crawdads movie has not publicly acknowledged the controversy, which again became a hot topic when Taylor Swift announced in March that she wrote a song for the film called “Carolina.” The singer wrote in an Instagram post that she was a fan of the book and “wanted to create something haunting and ethereal to match this mesmerizing story.”

Buzzfeed News reported that Swift’s involvement in the movie led several social media users to reflect on the artist’s history of white feminism, with one user creating a viral TikTok video that started a larger conversation about Swift, Reese Witherspoon, and their involvement with the film.

Read More : The 46 Most Anticipated Movies of Summer 2022

As the film is set to release, critics are addressing the controversy head on. “That Owens—already well-known before the novel—has managed to build an even more successful career despite details of her past resurfacing is bewildering,” Lovia Gyarkye wrote in her review for the Hollywood Reporter . “For many people, Where the Crawdads Sing struck an emotional chord, but it’s worth considering what one has to ignore in order to get there.” In Indiewire , David Ehrlich opined that “we may never know the full truth behind Delia Owens’ checkered past as a conservationist—which almost certainly seem [sic] to include a militant, white savior-minded approach to policing Zambian wildlife preserves, and may also extend to being a ‘co-conspirator and accessory’ to murder.” And for Vanity Fair , Richard Lawson wrote, “ Where the Crawdads Sing takes on some sinister dimensions—it would be easier to separate the film from its source were the film a full-bodied artistic expression all its own.”

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Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

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Where the Crawdads Sing film review — marshland murder novel gets muddy adaptation

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The New York Times didn’t ask my opinion: Where the Crawdads Sing

CW / Joe Will Field

Jenna Minser , Contributing Writer October 11, 2019

“The New York Times didn’t ask my opinion” is a regular column reviewing New York Times Best Sellers. 

Delia Owens’ first novel, Where the Crawdads Sing , became an instant classic upon its release, spending weeks at the top of the New York Times Best Seller list and only just recently having been dropped down to a #3 spot. It’s no surprise either: Owens, historically a nonfiction nature writer, has given us everything we could want in a book. A romance-filled coming-of-age story. A small-town murder mystery. And a beautiful, sometimes achingly so, account of North Carolina’s coastal marshes. 

Where the Crawdads Sing follows the life of Kya, a girl growing up in the mid-20th century off the coast of North Carolina. From the start of the book, it is clear that Kya’s life will yield challenges: her mother abandons her to an abusive and absent father; her family is extremely poor, living in a decrepit shack in marshland; and people in her small town of Barkley Cove treat her as a social pariah, only knowing her as “Marsh Girl.” 

When the town’s former star quarterback, Chase Andrews, turns up dead one day, all of Barkley Cove assumes Kya is responsible. Told in a narrative switching between the story of Kya’s childhood and the present-day murder case, Owens weaves a keep-you-guessing tale in which the more you know Kya, the more you question whether or not she killed Chase. 

The story moves seamlessly between long, poetic descriptions of Kya’s relationship with the marsh that becomes her home over the years and the murder trial that leaves the reader fighting not to skip ahead to find out what the next piece of evidence will be. 

Even without the exciting plot and cast of characters that you not only find yourself rooting for but feeling as if you know personally, the language and writing in and of itself is enough to make this novel fantastic. 

Though it takes a while for the excitement to really pick up, Owens prioritizing not only explaining Kya’s unique upbringing but also writing an ode to the landscape Kya lives on immerses the reader fully in the real small-town drama. Without knowing the true story, the reader is forced to struggle against a community that has hated Kya her entire life and thinks she is entirely to blame for the death of a beloved town member. 

Unfortunately, Owens didn’t deliver the perfect book – which is especially disappointing, because I think it could’ve gotten pretty close. This book is not the typical New York Times Best Seller. It is poignant. The characters are real enough to break your heart. 

The writing is breathtaking at times, but the ending is Hollywood.  Everything was wrapped up a little too neatly and unrealistic. 

Would I recommend it? Yes. I am desperate to have everyone I know read it, to cry, laugh and feel every bittersweet moment Kya experiences. But, it could’ve been better.

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Johnny Oleksinski

‘where the crawdads sing’ review: overblown and tedious southern drama.

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.

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 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.

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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Inside the List

‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ Still Rules the Fiction List. Over on Nonfiction, Though, Things Are in Flux.

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By Tina Jordan

• May 31, 2019

For the first time since his 1975 debut, “Black Sunday,” Thomas Harris has written a book that doesn’t include Hannibal Lecter, the erudite cannibal Stephen King once called “ the greatest fictional monster of our time .”

Lecter ruled the pages of “ Red Dragon ,” “ The Silence of the Lambs ,” “ Hannibal ” and “ Hannibal Rising ,” dining on the delicately prepared organs of his victims, but it’s a young woman, Caridad Mora, who drives the plot of Harris’s first novel in 13 years. “ Cari Mora ,” which has almost 350,000 copies in print, enters the fiction list this week at No. 3.

“People are always asking me, ‘How do you think of these characters?’” Harris recently told The Times in his first substantive interview since the mid-1970s . “People ask you that when they can’t think of anything else to say. I respond that I don’t make anything up. So look around you. Because everything has happened.”

Of his reluctance to talk to the press, Harris says, “I’ve been fortunate that my books have found readership without me promoting them, and I prefer it that way.” Going so many years without granting an interview made him a popular target for intrepid reporters. He has always rebuffed them politely, but it is perhaps worth noting that in “Red Dragon,” a serial killer glues a journalist to a wheelchair before biting off his lips and setting him on fire.

The most interesting thing about the fiction list, though, is that Delia Owens’s “ Where the Crawdads Sing ” is still sitting at No. 1. The novel, which was published last August, got an initial boost from Reese Witherspoon, who picked it for her Hello, Sunshine book club . Since then it’s become a true word-of-mouth hit , sellling over one million copies.

[ Dive into our summer reading package. ]

Things are beginning to loosen up on the nonfiction list, which has been dominated for months by two memoirs: Michelle Obama’s “ Becoming ,” which was published in November, and Tara Westover’s “ Educated ,” which came out in February 2018. (Well over a year after its publication, “Educated” is still selling so strongly that it doesn’t yet have a paperback release date, which is almost unheard-of in the book industry.)

Both “Becoming” and “Educated” are still in the top 10, but Mark R. Levin’s “Unfreedom of the Press” has seized the top spot (sending “Howard Stern Comes Again” to No. 2), and another new book, William H. McRaven ’s “ Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations ,” enters the list at No. 4.

Follow Tina Jordan on Twitter: @TinaJordanNYT

Follow New York Times Books on Facebook , Twitter and Instagram , s ign up for our newsletter or our literary calendar . And listen to us on the Book Review podcast .

1 hr 13 min

Crawdads and Controversy: The Story of Mark and Delia Owens Horrorwood: True Crime in Tinseltown

"Where the Crawdads Sing" by Delia Owens was THE hit novel of 2018, with a popular movie version in 2022. Taylor Swift even wrote a song for the film! However, author Delia and her now ex-husband Mark are still wanted for questioning in a murder case in Zambia. The killing was broadcast on TV in 1996 for a documentary featuring Mark and Delia Owens, American conservationists fighting a battle against poaching in Africa. Join us as we explore the allegations, where a passion for wildlife turned violent. We'll also answer any questions you have about crawdads...   Episode Sources: “Biographical Sketch of Mark and Delia Owens” from The Owens Foundation Website “Books by Mark and Delia Owens” from The Owens Foundation Website “The Hunted” by Jeffrey Goldberg, March 29, 2010, The New Yorker “Where the Crawdads Sing: Why Author Delia Owens Is Wanted for Questioning in a Real-Life Killing” by Savannah Walsh, July 15, 2022, Vanity Fair “The Dark History Behind the Year’s Bestselling Debut Novel” by Laura Miller, July 30, 2019, Slate “What to Know About the Controversy Surrounding Where the Crawdads Sing” by Annabel Gutterman, published July 13, 2022, updated July 14, 2022, Time “Wanted for Questioning: Who is Delia Owens’ ex-husband, Mark Owens?” by Jennifer Roback, published July 19, 2022, updated July 19, 2022, The U.S. Sun  “Americans Tried to Save Elephants in Zambia. Were They the Good Guys?” by Ruth Maclean and Collins Chilumba Sampa, July 6, 2023, The New York Times “A Shooting in Zambia” Video, Jeffrey Goldberg discusses a scene from the ABC show "Turning Point," in which a suspected poacher is shot and killed, The New Yorker “Crayfish (crustacean)” by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, last revised and updated June 15, 2024 by Adam Augustyn, Britannica “About the Author” on Delia Owens website “True story that inspired murder mystery on Netflix with impressive Rotten Tomatoes score” by Niamh Shackleton, April 26, 2024, Unilad “Where the Crawdads Sing” on IMDb “Review: Where the Crawdads Sing is a mystery so messy not even Taylor Swift can save it” by Barry Hertz, July 12, 2022, The Globe and Mail “Where the Crawdads Sing review – hit novel crashes on the big screen” by Adrian Horton, July 12, 2022, The Guardian   Join our Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/horrorwoodpodcast   Follow us! IG, FB, FB Group, Twitter, TikTok   Send us an email: [email protected]   Creeptastic theme music by: Nicholas Davio - nicholasdavio.com, @mr.nick.davio, @huron_coast   Privacy Policy

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