Beasts of the Southern Wild
Composite Score: 81.47
Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Lowell Landes, Pamela Harper, and Gina Montana
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Writers: Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin
Genres: Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Coming of Age
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for thematic material including child imperilment, some disturbing images, language, and brief sensuality
Box Office: $21.11 million worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The coming-of-age story set along the coast of Louisiana that is Beasts of the Southern Wild has depth of character, important thematic explorations, and an insightful look into a specific facet of American society that is rarely explored, making it an enjoyable, if at times difficult, watch. Told through the lens of Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis), a young girl living with her father beyond the levies of New Orleans in “the Bathtub”, the film examines poverty, climate change, family relationships, and the resilience of the human experience all at once. Rich in meaning and heart, Beasts of the Southern Wild will draw you in and connect you with the most unlikely of characters.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
This film contains some very difficult content. Hushpuppy is a young child put through a series of incredibly difficult incidents. Her father yells at her regularly and even hits her at one point when she has burned down her own house. She and the other citizens of the Bathtub live in what most would consider to be extreme poverty and very poor living conditions, which is hard to watch a young person experience. She stays in a ramshackle house during an intense hurricane, under threat of flood. She is forcibly removed from her home and taken to a mainland shelter after the Bathtub floods. It’s a lot to watch a child go through, especially if you have any kind of trauma associated with those events.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
For a film featuring a child as its main character, Beasts of the Southern Wild has some incredibly deep and complex characters. Hushpuppy herself experiences a major coming-of-age through all of the difficult circumstances that she has to overcome. She transitions from an independent child, still relying on her father for food and survival to a young lady who can hold her own and understands the “adult” things of the world, confronting her father about hiding an illness from her and leading a group of girls to find fried gator tails for her father’s last meal in some of the final scenes. The performance of that growth even garnered an Oscar nomination for Quvenzhané Wallis. Her father is also a dynamic and impactful character, played skillfully as equal parts bombastic and caring by Dwight Henry. His development from the strong force that dictates Hushpuppy’s life to a sympathetic shell of a man broken by life and alcoholism at the end of his life. The eclipsing of Wink by his daughter Hushpuppy is a central aspect of the film’s story. The character development drives the film and keeps you engaged through the difficulties of the film’s situations.
Themes of the threats of climate change and class struggle play out underneath the film’s overarching story. Often between Hushpuppy’s life events, shots of melting polar ice caps and new destructive forces are seen playing over ominous scenes, paralleling the changes in Hushpuppy’s own life. By the end of the film, she is seen as the master of the aurochs, ostensibly mastering the newness of her situation and promising the potential for humanity to conquer the threat of climate change in our own society, but only if we accept its existence. The class struggles are seen more explicitly in the film’s story. There is never a condemnation of the poor, a refreshing take in Hollywood, nor are we meant to feel sympathy for them. Instead, Zeitlin seeks to get the audience to empathize with the main characters, recognizing the humanity that connects us all rather than emphasizing the finances that separate our situations.
The uniqueness of the setting combined with skillfully designed and portrayed character development and compelling thematic elements help make Beasts of the Southern Wilds a rewarding watch. At a runtime just over an hour and a half, it’s hard to make an argument against watching the film, especially right now while it is streaming on Amazon Prime Video. When you are in a good head space, you need to check this movie out. One of the better coming-of-age movies to come out in the last decade, it definitely makes sense that this film made it as one of the Greatest Films of All Time.
