“The Lyricism Of The South” Lucy Alibar On ‘Where The Crawdads Sing’

Where The Crawdads Sing is a southern expression equivalent to familiar expressions like “way over yonder” or “in the middle of nowhere.” Basically, it’s a place far away from society.

Part murder mystery, part romance, part coming of age, part underdog, part criminal trial – Where The Crawdads Sing was adapted from Delia Owens’ of the same name by Lucy Alibar (Troop Zero, Beasts Of The Southern Wild). When Reese Witherspoon, Founder and Lauren Neustadter, President of Film & TV at  Hello Sunshine, got their hands on Owens’ manuscript, they immediately knew they were onto a winner which met their mission of producing film and TV shows about complicated women.

Crawdads follows the story of Kya Clark (Daisy Edgar-Jones) who was abandoned in the marshlands of Barkley Cove in North Carolina as a child. Kya was forced to raise herself through to adulthood in the absence of any parents or guardians.

“Reese [Witherspoon] wanted to capture the Southern lyricism in the film adaptation,” commented Alibar of her initial meetings with Hello Sunshine to define what the finished film might be. That was Lucy’s queue to condense the sprawling “love story wrapped in a mystery” into poetry for the screen. In addition to the Southern nuances, Reese finds stories of survival and making it on your own very empowering. “There’s a song and a spirituality in everything that arises from being in the South,” Alibar mused.

Lucy Alibar. Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Lucy Alibar embraced the spirit of seclusion in the title to mean “The marsh is where the truth lives… it’s where we’re all from. It’s the untameable part of nature that will always be there in all of us.” Despite Kya largely living her life alone on her own terms, there are traces of her wild spirit in all of us.

Salvation, Survival & Love

Kya, aka Marsh Girl, doesn’t adopt a victim identity. She adamantly rejects it in favour of fierce independence. “In addition to her self-reliance and resilience, Kya also finds love in marshlands,” Alibar continued. “The marsh represents her love for her chosen family and her art of writing books.”

Kya harmonizes with nature to survive. “She’s always observing the patterns of it. She studies bugs, fish, and birds, how they survive in a hostile environment and learns from that.”

Lucy wasn’t deterred by the numerous genre elements in the story. “I was initially looking at Brokeback Mountain when I wrote the love story,” she commented. “The interesting thing about Delia Owens’ work is that Crawdads is all of them and none of them all at the same time.”

The marsh of Barkley Cove is both hostile and tranquil and provides a fitting locale for Kya’s story. “The marsh is a metaphor for trash – a wasteland where people and things are discarded. Kya teaches people that there is so much value there.” It’s also her mode of social contact where she can observe the town’s community from afar.

The secrets of everyone belong in the marsh

There is more to the marsh than the knower of all things. There’s a line in Owens’ book that says, “The marsh become her mother.” Kya must accept and co-exist with the marsh in order to survive, no matter how difficult it can be. “The marsh is a dangerous friend.” However, life-threatening danger forces Kya to reach out and ask for help.

The marsh shaped both Kya’s and the townsfolk’s social ecosystems. The town views strangers with suspicion and there is a strict social order that is adhered to with little questions. It’s just the way things are around here! “Kya defies convention and breaks that order.” As Kya’s tempestuous foray into the town progresses, she learns that she has both supporters and detractors there; probably more of the latter. Still, she proceeds with a sense of cautious curiosity. She is vulnerable and equanimous, devoid of the raging anger that others might experience in her circumstances.

The screenwriter faced many hurdles while adapting the novel into a film. “The novel is very emotionally-based. You’re in Kya’s feelings at every beat.” Although Kya is the main character, a film cannot solely be told through her worldview. Some of the sprawling book had to be trimmed back for the film for the sake of brevity. In the film, Alibar had to explore the other characters too. “It was important for the other characters such as Mabel (Michael Hyatt), Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Chase Andrews (Harris Dickinson) to get a sense of who Kya is as well as depict their place in Southern society.” Despite their racial differences, each is a prisoner of their respective social shackles.

Jumpin’ (Sterling Macer Jr.) and Mabel (Michael Hyatt) Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Due to the economic nature of writing screenplays, Alibar was judicious in what ended up on the page to best describe each character. “If I had to write one scene that captured Mabel and Jumpin’s life or Chase’s backstory, what might they be?” said Alibar. She admitted that it was difficult to reduce the book into a two-hour movie because all the characters were so rich and vivid. What was left in the novel was often compensated for by the actors in their actions on the screen with minimal need for dialogue.

The screenwriter wrote five to ten main drafts of Where The Crawdads Sing before it went into production. Adaptation is such a layered and nuanced process to capture the tone and essence of the novel.

Lucy had particular difficulty in articulating the love scenes between Kya and Chase. Both characters were products of their cultural restraints, so the relationship had to remain discreet. Kya wasn’t the type of girl Chase was expected to date, let alone marry. There was also a subtle resentment of Kya as she was starting to get recognized for her writing.

Alibar described her writing voice as “the connection to the bigger things… a connection to our common thread to our humanity in spite of how differently we’ve been raised and shaped by our lives.” Writing must make a lasting impact and extend beyond the page. “A great movie should draw the audience in so that they become immersed and completely inhabit the world of the story.“

by Staff Writer

From our in-house editorial team.