Maybe that’s the fault of the book. I don’t know; I’ve never read it. But in weaving together two different timelines in the life of a so-called “marsh girl” named Kya—whose family deserts her and who mostly raises herself in the wilderness of coastal North Carolina until she learns to read, quicky thereafter writes and illustrates a successful nature book, and is then accused of murdering a local creep—the film fails to justify its own existence. Flashbacks and flashforwards seem shuffled together with no real consideration given to narrative or thematic coherence, and when it all does manage to cohere on occasion, it becomes so implausible as to be insulting.

And all of the above may have been forgivable if there were any real humanity to sink one’s teeth into but most of the characterization is one-note at best and the players have a habit of speaking in almost precisely the way real people don’t. The southern accents also reside deep in the Uncanny Valley for the most part, aside from that of star Daisy Edgar-Jones, a Brit whose performance is just about the only redeemable thing about this whole darned affair.

I say “almost,” because the cinematography by Polly Morgan also deserves some recognition. Mute the sound and simply watch the imagery flow by, and Where the Crawdads Sing is truly captivating. Shot in Arriraw at 4.5K resolution, the footage has been film-looked a bit, mostly through a warm color grade but also with the addition of some subtle faux grain that actually registers as grain instead of noise (assuming you’re viewing this thing at cinematic proportions, that is—otherwise you likely won’t notice it at all). That simulated grain does knock the edge off the crisp edges, but Crawdads is nonetheless a treat for the eyes, and Kaleidescape’s 4K HDR10 presentation is simply delicious, with abundant textures and subtle-but-effective high dynamic range that primarily serves to mimic the quality of natural light.

The Dolby TrueHD Atmos sound mix will also delight home theater enthusiasts who want all of their speakers to make some noise at regular intervals. Deep bass is employed from time to time to ape the quality of sound underwater, and the overhead and surround channels spring to life frequently to deliver the ambience of the Louisiana swamps that stand in for the book’s North Carolina marshlands. The score is a bit too aggressively mixed into the surround soundfield for my taste, though, and dialogue occasionally gets obscured.

Those complaints might carry more weight if the film were more worthy in other respects, but Where the Crawdads Sing is the very definition of a lazy book adaptation where everyone involved seemed to think the best way to convert page to screen was to type it all up with characters’ names centered on the page between lines of dialogue, then cut out the most boring bits and point a camera at what remains.

If you’re super interested, iTunes also sells the film with a handful of bonus features Sony didn’t see fit to release to Kaleidescape, but I can’t imagine anyone being moved by them. If morbid curiosity gets the better of you and you simply can’t resist this one, wait until it’s available for free on Netflix or Hulu or what have you. Or just watch the trailer again for free on YouTube. All the best bits are there anyway.