- I recall wondering at the time if Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild deserved to be eclipsed by its young star Quvenzhané Wallis, whose darling 9-year-old countenance was momentarily everywhere when she became the Academy Awards' record youngest nominee. Now that I've seen the film, I can safely say that the answer is yes. Wallis is the soul of Beasts of the Southern Wild, and the film would be unthinkable without her. With her, it's not exactly the brilliant cinematic masterpiece I had hoped it would be, but Wallis is undeniably wonderful. She screams, she burps, and she narrates in exactly the manner a girl of her age and experience should.
- Her character's story is something that she imagines future scientists will one day discover, and she puts it better than anyone: "Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub." Presumably named for its tendency to collect water, The Bathtub is a weird maritime community just off the coast of Louisiana and notably on the wrong side of the flood walls. Residents fish, drink, and party, sometimes all at once, and the dinner tables constantly overflow with crawfish, crabs, and other unidentified crustaceans. But Hushpuppy doesn't always eat so well. Her daddy Wink (Dwight Henry) runs a ramshackle farm that is barely getting by, and Hushpuppy usually shares her chicken breakfast with the animals she feeds.
- About Wink: He's not exactly the most responsible parent in the world. When he's not taking a pull from his ubiquitous liquor bottle, he's experiencing health problems that should land him in medical care facilities much sooner than they do. Needless to say, he hasn't made any plans for his young daughter. I'll admit that Wink probably loves Hushpuppy, but his love takes the form of immature eruptions of shouting. In fact, much of The Bathtub, with the exception of the sympathetic schoolteacher (Gina Montana), consists of happy-go-lucky types like Jean Battiste (Levy Easterly) who never allow real-world problems to get in the way of a good time. When faced with a potentially catastrophic flood, several of the residents, including Wink, insist on staying to defy the gods. Their subsequent decision to take matters into their own hands by bombing the flood wall crosses over from thoughtlessness to reckless endangerment.
- Admittedly, Beasts of the Southern Wild raises some interesting questions. Is it ethical to abandon people who don't want to be helped or, for that matter, to be such a person? Should the lives of the proudly and profoundly ignorant be celebrated just because events outside of their control like global warming and flood mitigation stand poised to make their existences even worse? As you might imagine, the film takes one stance, and I take a somewhat different one. For me, watching Wink assault doctors and repel rescue workers made it clear that he was a wild beast in bad need of some taming, if only for his daughter's sake. The film he's in is unique and occasionally beautiful, particularly with its on-location post-Hurricane Katrina bayou scenery and in that brothel seemingly at the end of the world. The film is right about the dire threat of global warming, but wrong about details like how rapidly floodwaters will rise or what an aurochs actually is (hint: think beef, not pork). I could be charitable and attribute these misunderstandings to Hushpuppy's vibrant child's imagination, but I'd rather just remember her splendid performance independent of the shaky edifice supporting the rest of the film.
- Based on a one-act play called "Juicy and Delicious."
- Dwight Henry was not an actor prior to this film, but a baker. Very impressive!
