In Theaters: Beasts of the Southern Wild ****

I recently took part in an email chain wherein we discussed the relative importance of world-building versus character development.  Needless to say, this discussion didn't reach a resolution as it would be impossible to come to a definitive conclusion on that point.  Now, having just looked over that chain of messages again, I realize that it wasn't much of a debate, just a few offhand musings.  Still, as I sat down to write a review of the latest indie-film sensation, Beasts of the Southern Wild, the idea of that conversation crept back into my mind.

What element is most important in storytelling, the characters being portrayed or the world they inhabit?  I won't be presumptuous enough to try to answer that question.  All I'll say is that, in this particular movie, they're of equal importance.

Writer-director Behn Zeitlin (you haven't heard of him, but you will) managed to create a world that is, at once, familiar and entirely unique.  And, in that world, he places two of strongest and most distinct characters depicted in recent film.  The result is, in my opinion, the best movie of 2012 so far.



The majority of Beasts takes place in a community referred to only as "the Bathtub," an island in between levees just off the Gulf coast from New Orleans.  At first, the community appears to resemble the images of poverty and helplessness we all remember in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.  In fact, one of the central turning points in the film is a massive storm that ravages the Bathtub and its inhabitants.

Yet, there is no direct reference to Katrina, and, besides, the people in this particular community, while obviously living in poverty, are not helpless.  The people of the Bathtub live abundantly off of the fish that they catch and the chickens they raise.  They live in huts, but no one seems to care.  Some of them, particularly a guy named Wink (Dwight Henry, a first-time actor who is actually a baker in New Orleans), get by with the aid of alcohol.

The Bathtub has it's own culture and rules.  Children live alone, watched by their parents from a distance.  They have their own mythology and mysticism.  For example, early in the film, the children of the Bathtub are taught about an ancient race of creatures call aurochs that used to eat their cave-dwelling ancestors and about a future when the polar ice caps will melt and cover their beloved island in water.

It's not clear whether these are just intended to be stories or if the people actually believe this stuff.
But, the story is told through the eyes of Wink's six-year-old daughter, Hushpuppy -- played by Quvenzhane Wallis, who gives one of the all-time great childhood performances -- and she believes every word it.  
Like any six-year-old, let alone one living in the poorest of communities without any schooling, her understanding of the world is incomplete and she is constantly trying to construct a reality out of her limited knowledge that makes sense to her young mind.  This effort is what drives much of the story.

Wink does his best to keep Hushpuppy at arms length, even keeping her in her own house there in the Bathtub.  This is not simple neglect as much as it is both a realization that he is not a great role model and purposeful decision to teach Hushpuppy how to survive when he's gone.  According to Wink's story, Hushpuppy's mother simply swam away one day and she spends every day hoping that she'll come back.

With a storm approaching and the people of the Bathtub struggling to get prepared, Wink collapses, revealing to Hushpuppy for the first time that he is very, very sick.  This realization causes her universe to unravel.  She envisions polar ice caps melting and crumbling away, thawing a heard of aurochs that were previously trapped in the ice.  The creatures begin to drift ominously toward the Bathtub and, as the movie wears on and, as Hushpuppy's fears begin to be realized, they get closer and closer.

The first great success of this movie is the visceral depiction of life in the Bathtub.  The audience is placed right in the middle of this community.  You can almost smell the fish piled up at every dinner table and the dankness of the wet and rotting wood their homes are made of.  While it's ostensibly unpleasant, the scenes that take place in the modern world are, by comparison, without color and without feeling.  In the end, the Bathtub is clearly the place you want to be.

The second great success, as you might have expected from my extended prologue, is the depiction of the characters. Wallis is, quite simply, an amazing screen presence.  Hushpuppy is a strong and willful character, but she lacks even a basic understanding of the world.  Too many successful child actors are just adults in little bodies (see: Dakota Fanning...creepy).  They can try to play children that are naive and ignorant, but there's always that feeling hanging over it all that it's just an act.  There is no such conceit hanging over Wallis's performance.  The youthful confidence coupled with the childlike naivete is just there on the screen, raw and unflinchingly real.

If anyone cared about my opinion, I'd volunteer to lead her Oscar campaign.

Henry's Wink is just as central to the story.  While he is mostly one note -- a drunk with an apparent ax to grind -- the layers of his character are revealed slowly as his illness and eventual fate come into greater view.  It's a great, heartbreaking performance.

It's not all that rare for me to cry during a movie -- I'm kind of a squish when you get right down to it.  But, it is rare for me to cry during a movie, to weep a little on the way home, and to tear up when I think about the movie the next day.  Yet, that's precisely what kind of movie Beasts of the Southern Wild is.  It hits all the right emotional notes on the way to a resolution that is, at once, heart-rending and uplifting.

This is a truly wonderful film.