Who is in the cast of Where the Crawdads Sing?
Daisy Edgar-Jones will take the lead in Where the Crawdads Sing alongside Harris Dickinson and Taylor John Smith.

When will Where the Crawdads Sing be released?
Where the Crawdads Sing is due to arrive in theaters on July 22. (edit: July 15 )

What is the plot of Where the Crawdads Sing in a nutshell?
In Where the Crawdads Sing, a young girl who grows up in a North Carolina marsh becomes a suspect in the murder of a man who once pursued her.

It’s a twisty thriller that doubles as a coming-of-age saga
Based on Delia Owens’s critically-lauded page turner, Where the Crawdads Sing centers on Kya, the endlessly resourceful resident of a North Carolina marsh. We meet her as a child in the early ’50s, as she is abandoned by her parents and older siblings, and learns to survive on her own. She is taught to read and write by her friend Tate Walker and falls for him, but is left behind once again when he goes to college. Enter Chase Andrews, a quarterback who draws Kya into a tryst with promises of marriage that never materialize. After she ends their relationship, he attacks her and she narrowly escapes. Then, while she’s away, Chase is found dead and Kya is engulfed in a murder trial—and the evidence against her seems insurmountable.

The cast is a mix of rising stars and fresh faces
Daisy Edgar-Jones, who dazzled audiences as the sensitive Marianne in Normal People and recently earned rave reviews at Sundance with her delicious new revenge thriller Fresh, will star as the resilient Kya. Indie darling Harris Dickinson, who won hearts in Beach Rats and can currently be seen in The Souvenir: Part II, is Chase, while Taylor John Smith, best known for his role as a distressed murder suspect in HBO’s Sharp Objects, is Tate. There’s also Garret Dillahunt and Ahna O’Reilly as Kya’s emotionally distant parents; Sterling Macer Jr. and Michael Hyatt as Jumpin and Mabel, a couple who come to Kya’s aid; and Jojo Regina and Luke David Blumm as the younger iterations of Kya and Tate.

There’s star power behind the camera, too
Reese Witherspoon, who selected Owens’s novel for her book club back in September 2018, is among the film’s producers. Olivia Newman (First Match) is in the director’s chair, and Lucy Alibar, who was nominated for an Oscar for co-writing *Beasts of the Southern Wild—*another story of a child raised in an isolated, otherworldly landscape—has penned the script.

The trailer is lush and atmospheric—and features an original song by Taylor Swift
Released on March 22, the first trailer for Where the Crawdads Sing opens with a shot of Daisy Edgar-Jones as Kya at her trial, before zipping back to her bucolic childhood spent painting with her mother. After being abandoned, we see her being bullied at school, foraging in the marshes, fishing, sketching birds, and opening up to Taylor John Smith’s Tate. When he, too, departs, she starts getting closer to Harris Dickinson’s Chase, until the camera cuts to the latter’s body as it lies motionless on the bank of a river. She is then hunted by the police, captured, and berated by the witnesses at her trial. As we watch her dashing through the woods, we hear snatches of the brooding ballad “Carolina,” written for the film and performed by none other than Taylor Swift. Could the best-original-song Oscar be hers come 2023?

It could be one of the biggest hits of the summer
Filming began in April 2021 and wrapped in July, with the drama set to land in theaters on July 22. If you have yet to read the gripping source material, which has already sold over 10 million copies globally, the time to order it is now.