Beasts of the Southern Wild
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a 2012 American drama film directed, co-written, and co-scored by Benh Zeitlin. It was adapted by Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar from Alibar's one-act play Juicy and Delicious. It stars Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry. After playing at film festivals, it was released on June 27, 2012, in New York and Los Angeles, and later distribution was expanded.
Beasts of the Southern Wild was met with commercial success and acclaim from critics, with praise going to the filmmaking and Wallis's performance. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards at the 85th Academy Awards, in the categories Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Actress. At age 9, Wallis became the youngest Best Actress nominee in history.
Plot
As a storm approaches a southern Louisiana bayou community called the "Bathtub", six-year-old Hushpuppy and her ailing, hot-tempered father Wink are optimistic about their life and their future. The children in school are being taught by Miss Bathsheba about nature and the release of prehistoric aurochs from the melting ice caps. At home, Hushpuppy fends for herself while her father is missing. When he returns, he is wearing a hospital gown and bracelet. They argue, and when Hushpuppy returns to her house, she deliberately sets it on fire. A chase ensues between the two, and she ends up getting slapped by Wink. When she retaliates by punching him in the chest, Wink collapses. Hushpuppy, realizing the damage she has caused, runs for help only to find her father missing when she returns.Meanwhile, in the Arctic, the frozen aurochs in an ice shelf start drifting into the ocean.
Many of the Bathtub residents flee an approaching storm. Wink reappears, staggering along the side of the road; he finds Hushpuppy and takes her home to start barricading before the storm hits. In an effort to make his daughter feel better, Wink attempts to scare off the storm by firing a shotgun at the clouds. The next day, the two tour the devastation and connect with surviving residents.
The Bathtub residents celebrate the end of the storm and make plans to rebuild their community, but the environment is damaged because the salt water surge from the storm has contaminated the fresh water supply. Wink hatches a plan to drain the water away by destroying the levee. He and a small group of friends plant dynamite and blow a hole in the wall using an alligator gar, and the water recedes. Authorities arrive and enforce a mandatory evacuation order, removing the residents of the Bathtub to an emergency shelter. Wink receives surgery, but it is too late to restore his health. At the first opportunity, the evacuees escape back to their homes.
Aware of her father's condition, Hushpuppy searches for her absent mother. She and her friends swim to a boat, which takes them to a floating bar known as the Elysian Fields. Hushpuppy meets a cook who may be her mother, though the woman doesn't recognize her. The cook says that the girl can stay with her if she wants, but Hushpuppy says she needs to go home. Hushpuppy and her friends return home where she confronts the aurochs. As the aurochs leave, Hushpuppy returns home. She says her last goodbyes to the dying Wink, listening to his last heartbeat. She sets his funeral pyre ablaze, standing together with the remaining residents of the Bathtub.
Cast
- Quvenzhané Wallis as Hushpuppy
- Dwight Henry as Wink
- Levy Easterly as Jean Battiste
- Philip Lawrence as Dr. Maloney
- Gina Montana as Miss Bathsheba
- Lowell Landes as Walrus
- Jonshel Alexander as Joy Strong
- Marilyn Barbarin as Cabaret singer
- Kaliana Brower as T-Lou
- Nicholas Clark as Sticks
- Henry D. Coleman as Peter T
Setting and location
Production
The film was shot on 16mm film, and director Benh Zeitlin created the production with a small professional crew and dozens of local residents in and around Montegut, Louisiana. The filmmakers call themselves "Court 13" and are the first credited at the end of the film. At her audition, Quvenzhané Wallis impressed the filmmakers with her reading ability, tremendous scream, and ability to burp on command, all of which are used in the film. After refusing Zeitlin's direction to throw a water bottle at another actor because she believed that it wasn't right to do so, the filmmakers were further convinced and the director said, "I realised this is Hushpuppy, that's what this whole movie is about: this moral girl who believes in right and wrong so strongly."Dwight Henry, who plays Wink, was not looking for an acting job and had no acting experience. As he explained in an interview with the San Diego Reader:
During a slow hour, he read for the part, and was chosen. But at the time, Henry was in the middle of moving to a larger building, and the filmmakers had trouble finding him. He explained that he could not leave a new business, but they were determined to have him. Henry concluded, "I was in Hurricane Katrina in neck-high water. I have an inside understanding for what this movie is about. I brought a passion to the part that an outside actor who had never seen a storm or been in a flood or faced losing everything couldn't have. … I was two years old when Hurricane Betsy hit New Orleans and my parents had to put me on the roof of the house. An outsider couldn't have brought the passion to the role that I did."
Reception
On Metacritic, Beasts of the Southern Wild has a weighted average rating of 86 out of 100 based on 44 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Similarly, Rotten Tomatoes gives the film an approval rating of 87% from 200 reviews and an average score of 8.2/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Beasts of the Southern Wild is a fantastical, emotionally powerful journey and a strong case of filmmaking that values imagination over money." The film was designated a 2012 "Critics' Pick" by the reviewers of The New York Times. Author and critic A. O. Scott, writing for The New York Times, calls Beasts aScott subsequently named Beasts of the Southern Wild the third-best film of 2012. Roger Ebert called the film a "remarkable creation... Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you've never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius. "Beasts of the Southern Wild" is one of the year's best films."
Conversely, critic Cole Smithey described it as "one of the worst films to come out of 2012", awarding it 0 stars out of 5 and calling the film "infuriating, insulting, and bathed in patronizing condescension". Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said that Beasts was "the most divisive film of 2012," opining that "The filmmaker comes from a perspective of great empathy and considerable skill. But he's a pile driver as a dramatist. The film's screw-tightening methods are so overbearing, the story, the characters, the little girl's plight have to struggle to breathe or develop anything like an inner life." Author and activist bell hooks wrote a negative review of the film, saying "the vibrancy in this film is generated by a crude pornography of violence" and calling Hushpuppy "a miniature version of the ‘strong black female matriarch,’ racist and sexist representations have depicted from slavery on into the present day."
The performance of newcomer Quvenzhané Wallis has been met with critical acclaim. Amy Biancolli of the San Francisco Chronicle says,
Lou Lumenick of the New York Post says that, upon second viewing,
Peter Travers of Rolling Stone describes Wallis as "flat-out amazement." He adds that "there's no way you won't be captivated by Wallis, chosen ahead of 3,500 candidates to play the tiny folk hero who narrates the story. Her performance in this deceptively small film is a towering achievement."
A.O. Scott of The New York Times describes the character of Hushpuppy, "Played by Quvenzhané Wallis, an untrained sprite who holds the camera's attention with a charismatic poise that might make grown-up movie stars weep in envy, Hushpuppy is an American original, a rambunctious blend of individualism and fellow feeling." Roger Ebert wrote in his positive review for the Chicago Sun-Times, that Hushpuppy is "played by a force of nature named Quvenzhané Wallis... She is so uniquely and particularly herself that I wonder if the movie would have been possible without her." On January 10, 2013, Wallis was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. At 9 years old, she is the youngest ever nominee in that category.
In an interview with People magazine, President Barack Obama described the film as "spectacular." The film's acclaim resulted in its Centerpiece screening at the 2012 Traverse City Film Festival. Sight & Sound film magazine listed the film at #5 on its list of best films of 2012.