Allegories aside,
Beasts makes a fantastic coming-of-age drama.
**** out of 5
93 minutes
Rated PG-13 for thematic material including child
imperilment, some disturbing images, language and brief sensuality
Fox Searchlight Pictures
It seems there’s always a lull after the glut of Thanksgiving films have
made their way to theaters. With nine films opening in a four-week span you
need some room to breathe. Now, the openings have seemingly come to a halt with
only one wide new release this Friday. So it’s tiem to play catch up.
Beasts
of the Southern Wild, based on Lucy Alibar’s stage play
Juicy and
Delicious, has been on my radar ever since winning the Grand Jury Prize
Dramatic award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. Even when it was released
theatrically I still never managed to see it. Finally, I’ve found out what all
the fuss is about.
Beasts throws us right into the middle of what appears to be a
horrible situation where we find young Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) living in
the flooded wilds of “The Bathtub.” Here, she lives with her dad Wink (Dwight
Henry) and her menagerie of pets. Life is hard growing up on the other side of
the levee in a flooded collection of homes and wilderness, offshore of New
Orleans. Hushpuppy doesn’t exactly live with Wink but in her own shack within
shouting distance. She attends “school” where the kids are scared about the
climate change with the threat of melting ice caps and ancient aurochs running
amok.
One day Wink goes missing and wanders back wearing a hospital gown and
bracelet. He won’t explain what happened to him causing Hushpuppy to get his
attention by starting her shack on fire and hiding in a cardboard box. Now Wink
is forced to take her in and things go from bad to worse when Wink suffers a
possible heart attack and a storm whips its way through town savaging
everything “The Bathtub” has left. Now Hushpuppy and Wink are forced to head
out in their makeshift motorboat to find fellow survivors or be left high and
dry. As Hushpuppy says about their predicament, “The end of the world already
happened.”
Director Benh Zeitlin brings quite the experience on such a limited budget.
Reportedly around $1.3 million, he pulls off some amazing visuals, which are
probably helped that there are only a handful of visual effects, mostly
involving the aurochs. Cinematographer Ben Richardson helps out by keeping
things on a documentary level, which only makes Hushpuppy’s hard reality ring
even truer. And as for Hushpuppy, young Quvenzhané Wallis certainly holds her
own. Feisty yet fragile, Wallis throws herself into the role proving her a
force to be reckoned with. The title may make you think there’s more literal
“beasts” roaming through the film, but what we find out is that it just may be
all of us who are
Beasts of the Southern Wild.
Fox Searchlight Pictures
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