From The New York Times Bestseller list to the big-screen, Where The Crawdads Sing brings the North Carolina marsh to life. Combining court-room drama, a marshy landscape and a coming-of-age story, Crawdads ticks all the boxes for a character-driven genre hybrid.
★★★✰✰
Crawdads follows Kya (Daisy Edgar-Jones), a protagonist whose life began in the swampland and whose home continues to support her in spite of the loneliness it brings. The story documents Kya’s adoration for the wild landscape and her growing independence. The natural world simultaneously alienates her from the townspeople and provides safety amongst the familiar, forgiving territory. This appreciation of nature and aversion to societal customs explains the immediate suspicion thrown her way when Chase Andrews (the town’s beloved former-quarterback) is found dead in the marshland. Through this introduction, an audience are thrown back to Kya growing up amongst this terrain and the struggles and joys that couple with living in an unknown marshland.
Intercepting short critical courtroom moments are scenes of Kya’s growing confidence navigating her home turf. These scenes gradually establish the roots of the tale, immersing an audience in the character-driven story and main setting—the marsh. Less back-and-forth in narrative than the book, Kya’s direct involvement in the court case is established immediately, rather than a gradual unravelling. Yet, mystery is garnered elsewhere. With more time documenting Kya’s relationships, her motivations in life, and a strong current of loneliness, the story becomes comparable to a ‘whodunit’ in the present day sections, and a coming-of-age tale in the past. As Kya craves her home whilst awaiting a verdict, so does an audience as the Carolina marshland is exposed as a place of calm and freedom.
Crawdads captivates by documenting Kya’s journey and how her alienated lifestyle and poverty equips the townspeople with enough fuel to suspect her of Chase’s murder. In an eerie modern-day witch hunt, the neighbours turn upon Kya—whom they have shunned since her earliest exposure in the town. Yet Jumpin’ and Mabel, played by Sterling Macer Jr & Michael Hyatt respectively, offer moments of relief to the daily stresses of Kya’s life. Their performances as supporting pillars to the turbulence of Kya’s foundations is authentic and engaging. As owners of a refuelling station and convenience store, they are her tethers of comfort and freedom within the marshland, literally and figuratively. Providing a community for Kya, their presence kept the story moving, whilst remaining a constant in the evolving plot. Returning to these characters signified progression in Kya’s past, and their absence a change in Kya’s circumstances (being suspected of murder)—they are a consistency that avoids narrative confusion.
Yet racial segregation, an integral part of their day-to-day lives in the North Carolina in the 50s and 60s (even after desegregation), is left absent in the film (despite being noted in the book). They may be secondary characters in Kya’s coming-of-age arc, but an awareness of the peculiar dynamic to townsfolk (an interracial friendship) would have built upon a feeling of alienation permitting Crawdads. Even Tom Milton (David Strathairn), the protective figure in the present, felt like an undistinctive character—perhaps to hone in on Kya’s story. The narrative is so dense, spanning a large portion of time, a few more subtle nods to important characters in Kya’s life would have only added to the story, belying the promise of a lengthier TV series over a film adaptation.
With any book to film adaption, what many readers consider essential moments can be left on the cutting room floor. From Kya’s adoration of poetry to some subtle narrative points in the trial, Crawdads seems to loosen the depth of the narrative for the sake of ease and directness. Despite the two-hour running time, the narrative journey passes with a flash. Presumably, by abandoning the smaller moments between Tate and Kya, the filmmakers hoped to focus on the core, relationship-building moments between the pair. Yet, those changes are exactly what make their relationship feel slightly forced. It seemed Chase Andrews, though dead for most of the film, dominates Kya’s life more-so than Tate.
Simultaneously a courtroom drama, a romantic tale, a documentary on the Marsh, and a coming-of-age story, Where The Crawdads Sing is multi-faceted. Daisy Edgar-Jones crafts an empathetic, expressive performance of a girl growing into woman, rooting the film in an individual’s experience. Yet Kya competes with the marshland for main character with its presence rooted in the entire film (even in the court-room scenes, the wistfulness for the marsh remains). Thus, it is no surprise Taylor Swift’s original song for the film is titled ‘Carolina’—a poetic, eerie song that is fitting for Kya and her home.
Thanks to the cinematography, an immersion into the Marshland is an easy feat. Although set within the fictional town of Barkley Cove, the landscape is evocative of North Carolina, and filmed primarily in New Orleans. Crawdads utilises the on-location shoots; the landscape catapults you to 50s/60s undisturbed, unknown marshland, aiding in Kya’s Attenborough-like appreciation for it. Without such a visual immersion into the land, Where The Crawdads Sing would lack an understanding of Kya and Tate, and thus the roots of the story.
The Verdict
Where The Crawdads Sing is a cinematic appreciation of the North Carolina marshland, which takes on a character of its own. Kya’s immersion into a court case contrast the calm and safety of the natural and isolated world she creates for herself. This juxtaposition is what makes the unravelling of her story, up to the mystery of Chase Andrew’s death, so intriguing. With compelling performances from the entire cast, Edgar-Jones stands out for her performance of Kya and proves that despite a sense of too little time to showcase the full narrative, Kya and the marsh remain immersive, interesting characters to focus upon.
Words by Annabel Smith
Where The Crawdads Sing is in cinemas now.
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