A strange story may have inspired the film.
*Warning: Spoilers for Where the Crawdads Sing ahead*
The movie adaptation of Delia Owens’s best-selling novel Where the Crawdads Sing garnered plenty of buzz when it hit theatres in 2022.
Considering it starred Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones, was produced by Reese Witherspoon and featured a Taylor Swift original song in its soundtrack, it’s no surprise.
The drama, which has recently become available to stream on Netflix, is set in North Carolina in the ’50s and follows Kya Clark (Edgar-Jones), a young girl who must learn to survive by herself in the marshlands after she’s abandoned by her family.
As an adult, Kya becomes involved with two men from her town. When one of them is found dead, she becomes the main suspect. Despite eventually being cleared and going on to live a long happy life, it is revealed at the end that Kya did in fact kill her ex-lover after he attempted to assault her.
But are the events depicted in the movie based on a true story? Well, it’s complicated.
Is Where the Crawdads Sing based on a true story?
Where the Crawdads Sing isn’t based on a true story. However, some people have drawn similarities between elements depicted in the movie (and the book it’s adapted from) and author Delia Owens’s own life.
In fact, Owens, her ex-husband Mark and her stepson Christopher are all currently wanted for questioning by Zambian authorities in connection to the murder of an alleged poacher that took place in 1995.
The controversy was extensively covered in a New Yorker Piece by Jeffery Goldberg, in which he details how Owens and her husband worked as conservationists in Africa decades before she moved back to the States and became a best-selling author.
They were the subjects of an ABC special titled Deadly Game: The Mark and Delia Owens Story, in which an alleged poacher is shot on camera after entering a campsite. His identity was never revealed and his body was never recovered.
The Owens family have strongly denied any involvement. No charges have ever been brought against them.
But how does this relate to Kya’s tale? Well, Laura Miller pointed out in a Slate piece that it’s “strange and uncomfortable to be reading the story of a Southern loner, a noble naturalist, who gets away with what is described as a righteously motivated murder in the remote wild”.
Of course, that doesn’t confirm anything, but it certainly explains why there was so much controversy surrounding the release of the film.
Where the Crawdads Sing is available to watch on Netflix. Sign up for Netflix from £6.99 a month. Netflix is also available on Sky Glass and Virgin Media Stream.
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