BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Grade: B
Premise: A young girl in a poor community questions her identity, her home, and the mystery of her long-lost mother after her father falls ill of a terminal disease.
Starring Quveznhane Wallis as Hushpuppy and Dwight Henry as Wink

Rated PG-13 for thematic material include alcohol abuse, some blood and gory images, and a few sequences of a child in danger.

Beasts of the Southern Wild, the eighth Academy Award nominee for Best Picture I've seen this year, is one of those movies that sneaks up on you. In a nonchalant, no-hurry manner, it plants you in a world of squalor mixed with strange beauty, gives you a mostly-silent protagonist, goes long stretches without dialogue, and, for long periods, seems to be about nothing. However, the force of performance from one of its key actors and the strong presence of the other keeps the film afloat, giving you strained family melodrama and crackerjack whimsy. The movie doesn't always make sense, and you might find yourself wondering why you're watching it, but the emotion surges at all the right moments. It's not a Friday night party movie, but if you're up for something different, it might just surprise you.

Plot: Six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quveznhane Wallis) lives with her daddy (Dwight Henry) in the Bathtub, a mud-and-sticks marsh in a walled-off area of the Louisiana bayou. Along with a few beer-swilling, seafood-binging poor neighbors, they live illegally because they believe they're better off in decaying trailors, leaky cabins and lean-tos than they are in a poor shelter. Precocious Hushpuppy wanders around on her own, playing with chickens and listening to the heartbeats of small animals, always answering the bell her father rings whenever it's "feeding time". She wonders about her mom, some of who's possessions she still has (She may have died; it isn't clear). Though her father is a cantankerous, hard-drinking man who sometimes disappears for a few days at a time, throws angsty fits and shuns affection and emotion, Hushpuppy has a strong connection to him. When he disappears for a few days and then resurfaces in a white hospital gown and bracelet, she doesn't understand.

After a storm floods the Bathtub, Hushpuppy, her father, and their neighbors are relocated to a shelter by local authorities. There, against his will, Hushpuppy's father is taken into surgery and then given proper care and a serious diagnosis. But the comforts of clean clothes, white walls, and square meals mean little to either of them. At first chance, Hushpuppy's dad sneaks the Bathtub citizens out of the hospital and back to their small community, where they'll live the way they want, but his illness is serious. Facing a life without the only constant presence in her life, Hushpuppy wonders if she should remain in the Bathtub or try to find a life elsewhere.

What Works?
You've probably heard by now that 9-year-old Quveznhane Wallis has become the youngest-ever Best Actress Oscar nominee for her performance as Hushpuppy. I don't know if it's a riveting piece of acting (even for a then-six-year-old), but, like the film, Wallis truly engages and moves when she needs to. Her gruff, stubborn, whimsical and wild child is a really interesting characterization. As is that of her father, Dwight Henry's Wink. It's obvious Wink should not be a parent (he's only held her once, right after she was born, he drinks all the time, he throws things at his daughter, and he makes no visible effort to give his child a better life), but Henry and the screenplay nonetheless show a man who teaches his daughter enough to survive, enough to be proud, enough to not live off handouts. He cheers her up during a thunderstorm by firing into the sky with a shotgun, he gets her to crack open and eat crabs on her own by leading their neighbors in a noisy chant, and he gives her pride in herself by challenging her to an arm-wrestling match and letting her win. For most of the film, Wink is not a likeable character, but, again, as his destiny becomes clear (especially as seen through his daughter's eyes), it's hard not to cry for him. Seeing this, I'm actually extremely disappointed Henry was passed over for an Oscar nomination when Wallis was nominated. It's true his performance lacks subtlety and "artistry" and all that stuff serious Oscar voters rave about, but, nearly as much as Wallis, he is the engine that drives the film.

Beasts is made up of a lot of faded camera shots and shaky handheld clips, but it's effective in capturing both the grime of the Bathtub world but also the beauty Hushpuppy sees in it. Between the images and soft but effective score, Beasts conjures up some memorable moments.

What Doesn't Work?
Beasts takes a while to get off the ground, to really establish any characterization beyond the fact that Hushpuppy is a little backwoods girl who lives in squalor. It also takes a while to establish a plot, and nothing about that plot until the last act is very clean cut. There's a lot that is unexplained. It also appears to have a fantasy angle that only manifests itself in a few brief moments, which is confusing--rather like this summer's Moonrise Kingdom, I, personally, think that, if you're going to make a weird movie, make it; if you're going to make a serious, realistic movie, make it. Don't make it look like you suddenly decided to throw in a curveball just for kicks. The movie's inherent curiousness and its slow burn pace also take a toll, as this 93-minute movie feels considerably longer.

Content
There's no sexuality or nudity, no violence, and I'm not even sure there is any real profanity, but Beasts can be a somber movie. It's depictions of poverty, of flood-wrought devastation, and a number of visual reminders of the inevitability of death make this is a sobering picture. It's also just plain out-there enough that I wouldn't recommend it to many people.

Bottom Line (I Promise): If you're up for something different, go ahead and check out Beasts of the Southern Wild. It's a quiet, unassuming movie about life (which is nominated for four of the most important Oscars given out this weekend), featuring two strong performances and a look at what seems like a whole different world.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012)
Directed by Behn Zeitlin
Rated PG-13
Length: 93 minutes