“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is one of the rare movies that feels less like entertainment and more like a defining moment in human history.
The movie tells the story of young Hushpuppy, played by six-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis, and her father Wink, real-life New Orleans bakery owner Dwight Henry, as they deal with the flooding of their bayou home, the Bathtub. The story is a coming of age story as Hushpuppy deals with death, survival and the loss of her mother. You can’t help but cheer for her as she breaks apart a crab to the delight of her father and notice the loss of innocence as she sees that the animals have died in the flood.
In a defining moment, Hushpuppy’s father asks her to show her guns. Hushpuppy flexes her biceps and her father asks her who’s the man. At the top of her voice she replies, “I’m the man!” In her performance Quvenzhane Wallis is the man. She rightly deserves to be the youngest person ever to be nominated for a best actress Oscar.
Her character shows maturity that is rarely found in adults, let alone children. She accepts the bittersweet moments of life and always finds something to smile about in the end. For an actress of any age, Quvenzhane Wallis is a standout.
The movie is a glimpse into the bayou culture. In one scene the members of the Bathtub break out of the shelter where they are placed after the National Guard removes them from their flooded home.
They are given new clothes and food but they immediately feel out of place in their new environment on the other side of the levee. They gather the kids and bust out, running in their hospital gowns, to go back to their home. It would have been easy to stay at the shelter but the people of the Bathtub are stubborn and need to carve out their own identity and not accept unneeded help from the government.
The movie does not glamorize the life of the people of the Bathtub. It shows poverty as a reality. There are no lavish costumes like in “Anna Keremina” or “Les Miserables”; the sets were made of trash but at the heart of the film there is a great story. The film is famously low budget and made under the guidance of new director Benh Zeitlin featuring cast members who are not professional actors. The actors give performances that make the movie feel like a documentary and not a scripted movie. The characters struggle with alcoholism and the loss of their homes, but also band together as a community that is destined to survive.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is a snapshot into an American culture and will leave you rooting for Hushpuppy and the people of the Bathtub as they reclaim their home and lose their childlike innocence.
