Where the Crawdads Sing a ‘swampy bucket of s**t’

On Reel Talk, Ben O’Shea has revealed why most people will think the movie Where the Crawdads Sing is a “bucket of s**t”.

Few films this year will be as hotly anticipated as the big-screen adaptation of Delia Owens’ novel, which hit Australian cinemas on Thursday.

The book has sat on the New York Times best-seller list for over 150 weeks and sold more than 12 million copies since its release in 2018, so the hype is understandable.

It’s a murder-mystery folded around a coming-of-age tale – something for everyone, right?

Well, certainly for fans of the book, of which there are many, who will likely be satisfied by what they see on-screen.

For everyone else, a slavish devotion to the source material by director Olivia Newman, under the auspices of Reese Witherspoon’s production company, has resulted in a film that’s impossible to like.

“The bad news…. if you don’t have an emotional connection to the book, well this film adaptation is going to seem like one giant swampy bucket of shit,” O’Shea says on Reel Talk.

“Don’t get me wrong book adaptations are hard… you’re always going to struggle to fit all of a book into the plot of the movie.

“This isn’t a problem when you’re adapting a book that no one has read… because no one will know you left out four or five chapters. But when the book has sold more than 12 million copies, it’s hard to get away with a bit of creative license.

“Instead the filmmakers were locked into a faithful adaptation… and it resulted in a film that has far too much plot and not enough character development.

“But if you like lingering shots of a swap at sunset… this is a film for you.”

See the full review in The West Australian.