I hate to write "the book was better", but this time I have no choice

The intentions behind The Crawfish Song are noble, but it joins a never-ending parade of mediocre adaptations of great books.

And also: Sean and Dylan Penn's film is actually surprisingly good

Avner Shavit

08/21/2022

Sunday, August 21, 2022, 00:27

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The trailer of the movie "Crayfish Song" (V.D. Matlon Film Forum)

"Song of the river crabs" is one of the outstanding literary phenomena of today.

Four years after it was published, it is still marching in first place on the New York Times bestseller list, and in eighth place on Stimatsky's list.

An impressive achievement also in light of the fact that this is the debut novel of Delia Evans, a zoologist by profession who recently made headlines due to her alleged involvement in a murder case.

Also at the center of the book is a criminal case - fictitious in his case.

It is about the mysterious death of Chase Andrews, one of the most popular guys in North Carolina in the sixties.

The main suspect in the murder is the real protagonist of the novel: a girl named Kaya, who lives on the fringes of society, outside of civilization, and the townspeople who came across her mockingly nicknamed her the "swamp girl".

The book jumps between different time periods, and describes Kaya's coming of age, and the relationships she developed with two completely different guys: Chase, who turns out to be a serious douchebag and a sexual predator;

and Tate, who helps her make the most of her research, writing and drawing skills.

It also describes the special relationship between the heroine and the nature that surrounds her, and at the same time how she learns to integrate into the company of humans.

In addition to this, he also follows the investigation of the murder and the legal process that accompanies it, and in the meantime describes the nature of life around the swamp.

Featherweight.

From "Song of the Crayfish" (Photo: Forum Film)

In my opinion, the book is wonderfully written - complex and convoluted but also coherent and engrossing.

You can understand why he was so successful, because he has many qualities and virtues.

He is able to give a sense of time and place, and introduce us to a world we did not know.

He succeeds in building a unique, captivating and empathetic heroine, and he is good at combining different genres - anthropological folklore, legal suspense drama and romantic melodrama.

In addition to this, he also deals with current and relevant issues, primarily sexual violence against women.

It was clear that at some point the book would become a movie, and it happened this summer.

The film adaptation was released in America a few weeks ago, and it reached us last weekend, with the main role played by the British Daisy Edgar-Jones, who thanks to the series "Normal People" has become one of the most promising young actresses at the moment.

There is no more condescending statement than "the book was better", but what if that's the best way to sum up this adaptation.

Only two elements in it make successful use of cinematic expression: the photographs of nature, which spectacularly revive the descriptions of the landscape in the novel;

And the ending, which makes good use of editing to describe the passage of time in an exciting way.

Beyond that, the film is inferior in every sense compared to the original, and mediocre by every measure.

It is too short to list the problems of the film.

Here are a few: the book is rich in different storylines, and the film adaptation tries to cram them all in, but even though it lasts about two hours, it does so in a superficial and hasty way.

Unlike the novel, he also fails to build tension around the murder case.

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No way

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From the movie "Crayfish Song" (Photo: Forum Film)

The book was so successful also because it was so detailed and specific.

For example, it had a lot of food descriptions.

The movie doesn't have that.

When you read the book you can feel for a moment that you are in the same time and place as the characters.

When you see the film, there is no such feeling.

The character design is also lacking: Chase and Tate don't look or act like guys from North Carolina in the fifties and sixties, and Kaya isn't convincing as a "swamp girl" either.

They look like they stepped out of a modern-day lacrosse club in California, and she looks like a hipster barista from a London coffee shop.

Edgar-Jones will surely do many great things, but in this film she fails to give the character of Kaya cinematic life.

All around, the performances of the supporting actors and actresses are terrible almost without exception.

Among the unknown names, David Straightharn stands out, one of the veteran character actors in contemporary American cinema, who plays the heroine's lawyer, but even he is not at his best, and seems to have been working on automatic pilot.

And there is also a Taylor Swift song.

From "Song of the Crayfish" (Photo: Forum Film)

"Song of the Crayfish", in short, joins a never-ending and probably also inevitable parade of mediocre adaptations of great books.

The only interesting thing about it is the story behind its production.

Well, the film was produced by Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine company.

The company aims to promote as many women as possible, both in front of the camera and behind it.

So first of all, she chose to bring to the screen a book written by a woman, whose protagonist is a woman, and which deals with female empowerment.

After that, unusually for Hollywood, almost all the senior positions in the project were filled by women.

Olivia Newman took the directing baton, Polly Morgan was responsible for photography, Lucy Oliver wrote the script, Taylor Swift wrote the closing song, and the list goes on.

The naysayers said that these progressives would further collapse the industry, but the facts say otherwise: the film recorded good financial achievements at the United States box office, relative to the age of epidemics in which we live, and in Israel it seems to have an audience as well.

I saw the film in a regular commercial screening on a Tuesday, and the theater was packed.

Proof that you can make money even when you stand on the right side of history.

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They said yes in a tongue-in-cheek way

Another American film that was released here last weekend is "Life on the Run".

This time it is not a fresh hit, but a drama that comes to us a year and two months after its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, and a year after its distribution in the United States.

This time, too, it is an adaptation of a book - in this case, it is the autobiographical book of the journalist Jennifer Vogel, which was published about twenty years ago.

In it she described her complex relationship with her father, a charming but withdrawn man who was responsible for a huge fraud.

The best illustration of his egocentric and gloating personality is his attitude to his birthday: he was born on June 14th, which celebrates the adoption of the Stars and Stripes as the American flag, and treats this date as if the celebrations are in his honor, and not in honor of the national landmark.

Therefore, this drama is originally called "Flag Day", which is lost in its generic Hebrew translation.

The film was directed by Sean Penn, who also stars in it as the rogue father, and the character of the daughter is played by his real-life daughter - Dylan Penn.

Do not run away from emotions.

Shawn and Dylan Penn in "Life on the Run" (Photo: Lev Cinema)

Penn was once a respected director, but the last few years have not brightened his face.

His previous film "The Last Face" was harshly criticized, and this film was also received with cold disapproval.

Although it was screened in the official competition of the Cannes Film Festival, it came out empty-handed.

The reviews were lukewarm, and so was the box office performance.

Contrary to popular opinion, I think "living on the run" deserves attention and appreciation.

Watching it is immersive and fun, and this is for three reasons.

The first is Dylan Penn, who inherited good genes from his father and mother, Robin Wright-Penn.

She was born for the big screen, in every sense of the phrase, and conquers the hearts of the audience with an extraordinary cinematic presence.

Besides, past experience shows that family closeness in reality does not necessarily produce chemistry on screen, but in this case the Penn family certainly succeeds in producing electrifying chemistry.

The second reason is the emotional intensity of the film.

Nowadays, most movies hide behind cynicism and sarcasm.

"Life on the run", despite its name, does not run away from its feelings.

It is emotional and romantic, and even tickles the realms of kitsch, but without gliding into them.

It is beautiful, refreshing and touching.

In addition to all this, the film also boasts Daniel Moder's beautiful cinematography (trivia detail: he happens to be Julia Roberts' real-life partner).

"Life on the Run" takes place in Minnesota, but was actually filmed in Canada.

Either way, the photographer gets the best out of the landscapes in front of him, from the camera in his hands and from the big screen.

Anyone who underestimates this movie is simply ungrateful.

To see nowadays a movie with such a big heart, such good actors and such beautiful cinematography is really not obvious.

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• Taylor Swift

• Reese Witherspoon

• Sean Penn

• Dylan Penn

• Cannes Film Festival

• normal people

• Crayfish song

• Daisy Edgar-Jones