a book is this popular, it s always very difficult doing an adaptation. yes. there were moments in this in which i could almost hear the book behind it, thinking, ok, i can sort of see what the text would have been. the performances are good. i mean, it s a very good cast, it s very well done. the production design is really beautiful. but it all feels very safe. it deals with some dark subject matter, but it feels like a very polite treatment of that subject matter. and i kept thinking, somewhere in here, there is an earthier, grittier version of this story, but it s kind of got a touch of the nick sparks about it. itjust felt oddly bland. that s not to say it s bad, and it may well be that if you have read the book, you get more out of it. but i did think, ok, it s kind of. like i said, despite that swampy setting, it had a very lukewarm feeling and i didn t get emotionally involved in the way that i had expected to, so. because reese witherspoon options some interest
hello and a very warm welcome to the film review on bbc news. and taking us through this week s releases is, as you see, mark kermode. hi, mark. hi. what have you been watching? well, as always, a very mixed bag. we have where the crawdads sing, which is an adaptation of a very popular novel. we have she will, which is the feature debut from charlotte colbert. and kurt vonnegut: unstuck in time, a documentary about the american writer. good old mixture there, yes. yes. so, where the crawdads sing, which is an adaptation of the deep south novel which became a publishing sensation millions and millions of copies sold. this is adapted by lucy alibar, who is best known for beasts of the southern wild. one of the producers is reese witherspoon, so very, very good pedigree. yes. daisy edgar jones is kya, who is called the marsh girl . she grew up amidst the marshes of the deep south, fending for herself, understanding nature. at the beginning of the film, we see her being arrest
so on the one hand, you ve got the court case, then you have the flashbacks to her life, her childhood abusive father, abandoned by her mother relationship with two boys, both of whom let her down. two young men, i should say. the book was a huge hit. the film s credentials are impeccable. and yet, and i hate to say this, it all felt very lukewarm. now, i haven t read the book, so i don t know how somebody who had read the book would feel about it. i know that whenever a book is this popular, it s always very difficult doing an adaptation. yes. there were moments in this in which i could almost hear the book behind it, thinking, ok, i can sort of see what the text would have been. the performances are good. i mean, it s a very good cast, it s very well done. the production design is really beautiful. but it all feels very safe. it deals with some dark subject matter, but it feels like a very polite treatment of that subject matter. and i kept thinking, somewhere in here t