Muddled storytelling bogs down hotly anticipated Crawdads
Where the Crawdads Sing
(M, 126 mins)
Directed by Olivia Newman Reviewed by James Croot ★★1⁄2
Not since Gone Girl, Fifty Shades of Grey or The Girl on the Train has a cinematic adaptation of a beloved book been so hotly anticipated.
While Delia Owens’ mid-20thcentury-set North Carolina tale hasn’t quite hit the sales figures of those three literary behemoths, 12 million copies in about 40 months represents a pretty impressive return – and potential fanbase.
Lucy Alibar is best-known for co-writing the provocative, evocative Beasts of the Southern Wild, which has thematic echoes to this with its story of a young woman’s coming of age and link to her natural surroundings. Lead actor Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People and Under the Banner of Heaven) is brilliant at portraying the mix of vulnerability and steely determination that Crawdads’ protagonist requires, but this often seems lifeless and bland, lacking some of the nuance and emotional gut-punch of the novel.
The dual narrative strand would always be a challenge, but this ends up feeling more than a little rushed.
It also evokes memories of movies from that bygone era of the late-1990s and early-noughties, a somewhat clunky hybrid of a John Grisham courtroom thriller and a Nicholas Sparks romantic drama.
The latter never truly compelling – mainly because both the blokes in the love triangle behave badly – and the former preposterous because of the prosecution’s ongoing stupidity.
Where the Crawdads Sing chronicles the life of Catherine ‘‘Kya’’ Danielle Clark (EdgarJones). Raised in Barkley Cove’s marshes by an abusive father, she was abandoned by her mother and four siblings, as each of them found their own courage to leave.
Even after his death, she was still reviled and shamed by most of the nearby town, shown kindness only by the African-American couple who owned the local store and fellow swamp rat Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith), who teaches her to read and encourages her talent for illustrations and knowledge of local fauna and flora.
But after their relationship becomes romantic, he fails to live up to his promise to keep in regular touch with her when he goes to college. Hurt, Kya is eventually seduced by the continued attentions of chiselled scion Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson), even though his love language is sending her mixed signals – at best.
This backstory is all framed by Kya’s later arrest and trial for his murder. Found at the bottom of a fire tower, authorities are convinced ‘‘the best quarterback the town has ever had’’ fell 63m to his death after being pushed by ‘‘the marsh girl’’.
Despite no fingerprints, no tracks and a seemingly solid alibi, they believe Kya had the requisite ‘‘time, motivation and weakness of character’’.
With a jury of her peers from a community that has always judged her, Kya’s only hope of avoiding the death penalty rests in the hands of retired lawyer Tom Milton (David Strathairn).
The film’s release has been further muddied by questions around author Owens’ brush with authorities in Zambia, but even that distraction can’t hide the fact that this adaptation is likely to be polarising.
Director Olivia Newman certainly does a great job of creating a sense of space and place, especially in the marshlands, but the courtroom antics rarely rise above the risible and the ending feels rushed and lacks the source material’s resonance.
‘‘I wasn’t aware that words could hold so much. I didn’t know a sentence could be so full,’’ Kya says in a speech that becomes key to unlocking the story’s final mysteries. Here, without the narrative follow-through, they just feel more like empty phrases.
Where the Crawdads Sing is screening in cinemas now.