Oscar nominee review - Beasts of the Southern Wild

There’s pressure to like the indie drama Beasts of the Southern Wild. After all, it has won most of the awards available at the highest-profile film fests… and now an Oscar nomination. I can feel the weight bearing down on me. I’m being patient though, attentive… watching through the film’s imagery, its mythology, its eccentric environment and people, waiting for it to take hold and move me somewhere. All these things swirl around poetically and in interesting paths and patterns, but never seem to coalesce into anything more than a choppy and slow wave of thoughts passing through. What’s wrong with you Pat – didn’t you feel it… sense the magic? Uh, not really… not this time.

Beasts is text-book “art cinema”, including a core social-realism style, and emphasis on the development of ideas through the imaginations of its characters rather than presenting a clear, plot-driven story. The film does set up an interesting gallery in which to display its paintings and poetry. Beasts’ “southern wild” is contained in a fictional Louisiana Bayou (inspired by the real Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana), known to its harshly defiant and hygiene-challenged inhabitants as “The Bathtub”. At the center of the gallery is Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis), a wild-haired, six-year old girl, living (sort of) with her hard-drinking and erratic father and the rest of the small rag-tag Bathtub band committed to protecting their way of life, detached from the toils of the dry-landers modern world. But The Tub, and their life, is endangered… sinking into the water with the sliver of land they reside on. Hushpuppy imagines the universe and the Bathtub as made up of natural puzzle pieces that must stay in place and functioning or the universe breaks. When the Bath Tub's universe begins to falter, she sets out to fix its pieces. 

Wallis shines bright as Hushpuppy and is the best reason to see this film. She is captivating as her strong-willed Hushpuppy wanders among squalor, taking in her father’s, and other's, lessons on resilience and pushing back against his neglect and ruthlessness, finally striking out on her own to try and solve her world’s puzzle. Rookie Director Benh Zeitlin surrounds her with aberrant imagery and philosophizing characters. But these seem to pass by like curious and discrete snapshots without major impact. Some of the pictures of Hushpuppy’s journey are memorable, but the void space between is too great to tie the whole thing into meaning. But, of course, being an “art film”, maybe Zeitlin isn’t shooting for meaning, but only for the cerebral experience… and thus the pressure. I feel ignorant, of course; somehow defective for not praising Beasts, for not gushing over about its originality and boldness. After all, the film has garnered public acceptance beyond its critical acclaim – Beasts shows an 80 %-liked audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. I suspect (or maybe hope), however, that many of those 28,000-plus that voted on RT caved to that same pressure I felt. So, if you are left nonplussed by this supposed oracle film of truth and art, know that you are not alone – be strong, hold your ground, and stand up and say to your viewing companions… "So what’s all the big deal about?” 5 out of 10. – Pat L.