Daisy Edgar-Jones and David Strathairn in Where the Crawdads Sing.Credit:Michele K. Short/Sony Pictures
We learn that her mother walked out on her children because she could no longer stand her husband’s violence and drunkenness and that Kya’s older brothers and sisters followed soon afterwards,leaving her to her father’s indifference. Then he left,too,and Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer jnr),Mabel (Michael Hyatt) and the marsh became the only family she had.
Her handsome prince arrives in her teenage years. Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith),a local boy who was once her brother’s friend,knows the marsh almost as well as she does,and after he offers to teach her to read and write,friendship grows into love. But inevitably,the wider world claims him and he goes off to college,leaving the field open to Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson),a feckless glamour boy straight out of Mills&Boon.
The last part of the film is set largely in the courtroom where Kya is defended by David Strathairn’s Tom Milton,doing an Atticus Finch right down to the white suit he wears for his closing address to the jury. By this point,the book’s cliches have won out and all the literary elements that made it unique have completely evaporated.
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Film is remorseless when it comes to stripping a novel down to its essentials. Any flaw in its structure is exposed. So,too,is any trace of the implausible,no matter how fine the writing that surrounds it.
Too often,sad to say,the better the book,the worse the film.
Where the Crawdads Singis in cinemas from July 21.