Film Review: Beasts of the Southern Wild

"Everybody loses the thing that made them. It's even how it's supposed to be in nature." - Quvenzhané Wallis

This is a rather strange animal of a film, but it definitely has a certain charm to it.  It's a rough and dirty-looking film, taking place in strange environment that's simultaneously filthy and endearing.  It's full of tough characters who straddle the threshold between being lovable and totally unlikable.

What makes the film so endearing will likely be its focus on the main character, a little girl named Hushpuppy.  Her sweet, childish perspective contrasts so sharply with the settings and the tough love her father dishes out, it creates a unique bittersweet experience.  With its short runtime, the film rarely drags, and it gives just enough of everything to dip the viewers into the world of the Bathtub and make them understand Hushpuppy's simple and elegant philosophies.

The story for this is pretty weird, if you stop to think about it.  Since it never really shows civilization of any kind on screen, I was left wondering if this was meant to be a fantasy world entirely of its own, a vision of the near-future, or just a real modern-day setting.  If it's the former, I find it rather incredulous that a place like the Bathtub could exist and sustain human life.  Regardless, the film does make the place look appealing, as the characters show a lively spirit and revelry in their natural environments.  The characters tend to be mean, especially the father figure of the story, but it's all designed to emphasize a tough love aspect, and to underscore a strict nature-vs-nurture theme.

Thanks to some of the metaphorical imagery on-screen and the dialogue, the film covers some interesting thematic ground regarding humanity's connection to nature.  It makes us out to be raw, primal, animalistic beings.  At the same time, the film offers a message that will either make or break the film for viewers:  it has a blatant political resemblance to the hurricane Katrina disaster.  Chances are that you might watch the film and consider it naive, or possibly pretentious.  I personally did not catch on to the political parallels of the story, so it did not affect my impression of the film that much.  If anything, I felt it was subtle.

Using some herky-jerky camera work, the film looks appropriately gritty and rough.  Despite the shakey camera, it never reached cogitating levels for me.  Acting is decent; I found Dwight Henry rather unlikable as the father, but Quvenzhané Wallis gave an exceptionally noteworthy performance.  Writing is simple, but effective.  This production makes the best out of its low-grade settings, props, and costumes, and features some decent special effects.  Music carries the appropriate style and atmosphere for the film.

I felt this film is everything that Where The Wild Things Are tried so hard to do, but wound up failing at.  The two would probably go good together, but I much prefer this original feature.

Recommended.

4/5 (Entertainment:  Good | Story:  Pretty Good | Film:  Very Good)