by John Zenoni
I had the chance to see the highly anticipated film, ’Where the Crawdads Sing’, based on the novel of the same name by Delia Owens, and will say the director/screenwriter did a good job of staying true to the book. It has become a much loved, highly-praised novel and I honestly can say, and this is when I will most likely get raked over the coals, that I just don't get all the fuss or hoopla about it. Yes, it was a good read and I enjoyed specific things about it but people have taken it to another level that I just don’t get. As for the movie, as stated earlier, it's definitely on track with everything in the source material and it's enjoyable enough to watch but for me it had a ‘Lifetime’ movie feel to it. Not that there is anything necessarily wrong with that but I was hoping the film would be more suspenseful and focus on the trial, more so than the love story.
As far as the film goes, the cast does a great job - especially David Straithairn, who plays the small town attorney Tom Milton, and Michael Hyatt and Sterling Macer, Jr, who play probably two of my favorite characters in the film, Mabel and Jumpin, who are kind and care for the lead character, Kya.
For those not familiar with the story, Kya is a young girl who is abandoned by all of her family members due to the abusive father in the house. Her mom leaves her first and the siblings then go one-by-one, leaving her with him until she is alone and has to raise herself in the backwoods, marshy area of North Carolina. Thus, she became known by the locals as the ‘marsh girl.’ She's devoted to her life in the marsh and the nature that surrounds her.
Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Kya and she does a good job as well. This was a tough role to take on, considering how many people love the novel, and I can only imagine she felt a lot of pressure to ‘get it right.’ I will say the ending did get to me, as I had forgotten about it in the novel and it hit somewhat close to home.
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