Please Note: “Where the Crawdads Sing” spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie or want to read the book, steer clear!
One central question in “Where the Crawdads Sing,” adapted to film from Delia Owen’s popular novel through Lucy Alibar’s screenplay, is: Who killed Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson)? At first, it seems the answer might elude viewers — until the final moments of the story subtly reveal what happened to him.
Some backstory first: “Where the Crawdads Sing”The life story of Kya (Daisy Edgar Jones) is told. Kya’s earliest memories of her family are loving ones, but as she tells her story from a dank jail cell after getting arrested for her suspected killing of Chase Andrews, she reveals that her family left her all alone to fend for herself in the marsh where they lived.
Kya was previously in a relationship to Chase before she learned that he was married to another woman. Before Chase, Kya was in a relationship with Tate Walker (Taylor John Smith). Tate introduces Kya to poetry in Owens’ book, and poetry helps Tate uncover a shocking revelation at the end of the story, but the film does not include this element at the end.
“There’s so many amazing parts of Delia’s book and it was a very hard and painful decision of what to include in the movie and what we had to leave out,”Olivia Newman, director of. “We hope that [Kya’s] poetry comes through in the visual language and in the way that she talks and the way that she observes the world. We didn’t feel we were losing too much of telling her character’s story if we couldn’t fit that into the movie.”
Kya recite poetry to herself whenever she is by herself in the book. Amanda Hamilton is a local poet, who has many poems published in regional magazines. Tate discovers that Kya used Amanda Hamilton’s pen name and wrote the poems. The book closes with a poem by Amanda Hamilton (aka Kya) called “The Firefly,”This symbolism draws upon the symbolism Kya discovers in how male fireflies lure female mates to their deaths by sending false signals.
“We never considered changing the ending. For me, the ending is the story. That ending is everything to understand who Kaya is and the choices that she was faced with,”Newman said. “You have to have that ending. That was always incredibly important to me.”
The Firefly poem gives Tate the first clue that Kya might have actually been responsible for Chase’s death. Chase discovers the shell necklace Kya made for Chase, hidden in her shack. Chase did not take the necklace off Kya, who gave it to Chase. However, Chase found the necklace when his body was discovered. The film features a detailed painting by Kya of a firefly and one of Chase from a journal. This visual hint at Kya’s true intentions.
“We did discuss shooting a slightly more explicit version of the ending,”Newman was added. “The book leaves so much to the imagination, and you get to understand who Kaya is, but never fully. That’s part of what’s mysterious about her. We wanted to maintain that there’s a mystery to it.”
Kya’s trial paints a picture of what could have happened the fateful night Chase Andrews fell out of the fire tower, especially when his family’s attorney tries to speculate based on evidence. Newman suggests there might be scenes that aren’t covered in the book.
“The first cut of the movie was three hours long, so there are a lot of deleted scenes,”She said. “But a lot of them will be available on the DVD – extras so the fans can see.”
The shocking ending realization that Kya did actually kill Chase leads to Taylor Swift’s original song “Carolina,”This booklet is included with the end credits, which include illustrations by Kirby Feagan. “Crawdads” is far from the ending of Newman’s career — as she has signed on to direct another Hello Sunshine adaptation of a best-selling book, “The Last Thing He Told Me,”This sounds suspenseful. “Where the Crawdads Sing.”
“It is such a fantastic project. It’s a seven-episode limited series starring Jennifer Garner, who’s just wonderful,”Newman said. “It’s adapted from Laura Dave’s novel ‘The Last Thing He Told Me’ and it’s a story of a woman whose husband works for a tech company that is busted for fraud and he goes missing. So she sets out to figure out if he’s involved and what happened to him and why he disappeared and she’s left with his 16-year-old daughter who can’t stand her. So it’s really this incredible, you know, suspenseful mystery. But also a mother sort of a mother, stepdaughter love story in the end. It’s great to be working with Hello Sunshine again and Laura Dave and Josh Singer, the showrunners are fantastic.”
Notice: This article originally appeared in July 2022. It has been updated to reflect the fact that the film is now available on Netflix.
