LOGAN MCCORMICK 

rating: ★★★

Hushpuppy and Wink on the docks of Bathtub.

In an impoverished area of Louisiana, affectionately known as “The Bathtub” by its few residents, a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) spends her days surrounded by a symphony of heartbeats.

She’s surrounded by the pulse of the many animals she lives with whose chests she curiously pushes her ear against, listening to the booming thrum of life rushing through their bodies and the heartbeats of the varied characters that populate her world. She’s connected to her community. She’s in tune with its members.

In director and first-time feature filmmaker Benh Zeitlin’s film Beasts of the Southern Wild, based on co-writer Lucy Alibar’s play Juicy and Delicious, Hushpuppy is sent on a journey for her estranged mother after her father Wink’s (Dwight Henry) health begins to fail and a great flood washes away her community.

Combined with the arrival of giant boar-like beasts called aurochs following the crash of ancient icebergs during the storm, which Hushpuppy’s teacher prophesied early in the film. Hushpuppy’s journey presents a life of squalor intertwined with moments of fantasy. She guides us throughout the film and the events we experience are filtered through her perspective. The result is a story that is told more as poetry than as a point “A” to point “B” narrative.

Hushpuppy narrates the film in a wise but innocent way that recalls Linda Manz’s voiceovers in Terrence Malick’s film Days Of Heaven, and it is Wallis’s performance that earns much of the praise Beasts has been receiving. Both Wallis and Henry are first-time actors, which could have potentially hurt the film. Wallis’s amateurish delivery, however, enhances her character as a whole.

Henry, a baker who Zeitlin had convinced to read for the part of Wink, surprises us with an effective performance. He is especially moving in a heartfelt scene near the end of the movie in which Wink is finally able to make an emotional connection with Hushpuppy that surpasses the confines of their tough-love dynamic. With Wink confined to a hospital bed and Hushpuppy at his side, the two switch roles and Hushpuppy nurses her father.

Wink is a prideful man. He tries to teach Hushpuppy how to be self-sufficient and stake her claim amidst the chaotic and uncaring ways of nature.

Although visually rich and captivating, Beasts could rightly be accused of cobbling together its many fantastical elements into a story that rarely becomes more than the sum of its parts. Weaving through the dreamlike, bare-bones narrative, the audience is left to wait for moments of honesty and true emotion.

But the moments are there. We see the residents of the Bathtub yelling with elation. We feel the terrible approaching thunder of the mystical auroch beasts. We are empathetic to Hushpuppy’s heartache as she searches for her lost mother and we see Wink and Hushpuppy connect near the end of the movie.

Despite these moments of pure emotion, Beasts is still unable to pull itself together into one cohesive dream. At the core of this film is something beautiful, but we only catch glimpses of it.

Unfortunately the weaker elements of the film are unable to hold the better moments above the waterline and the whole film ultimately suffers for it. However, Beasts of the Southern Wild is a film of many strengths as it’s nearly impossible not to fall for Hushpuppy’s determined charm and be affected by the outstanding first-time performances.

—
Photo: Supplied