At The Movies 

 David Begelman

Citizen News Film Critic

“Beasts of the Southern Wild:” Water,Water Everywhere

Life’s a mystery. If it weren’t, how do you explain that the best film performance by a woman thus far this year was by a professionally inexperienced girl of six? (She’s now 8). She is Quvenzhané Wallis, and plays “Hushpuppy,” a girl raised in squalor in an interracial community of the southern Delta. She was chosen for the role over two thousand others who were auditioned, and her character’s coming-of-age story in Benh Zeitlin’s poignant and powerful “Beasts of the Southern Wild” is something that has to be seen to be believed.

But we should avoid galloping expectations. Because of her age, the actress would probably be at a loss to discuss her role in a forum like the Charlie Rose show. Unlike cast members of Oliver Stone’s “Savages” (Salma Hayek, John Travolta) or Marc Webb’s “The Amazing Spider-Man” (Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone), Quvenzhané might be nonplussed by the challenge. After all, palaver about one’s performance that has little or no relation to what you see on the screen would in all likelihood exceed her present capabilities—fortunately. In the case of adult Hollywood stars in blockbusters, this kind of discourse comes with the territory.

In Zeitlin’s film, which won a Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and the Camera d’Or at Cannes, Hushpuppy lives in a bayou section of the country called “the Bathtub.” It is subject to continual flooding because it’s located on the wrong side of levees, and is a likely area for watery devastation. (Although the film is not about the aftermath of Katrina, the specter of that tragedy nonetheless haunts the movie like a residual memory.) Hushpuppy’s abode is tied-together trailers she inhabits with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry). 

Hushpuppy is subject to other adversities. She has lost her mother, and her father is a drinker and occasionally violent parent with a terminal illness. The latter is the reason he strives to make her as independent and feisty as he can, so she can cope with any future challenge and come out a survivor.

Drastic environmental changes brought about by such conditions as rising temperatures alter the landscape of the girl’s living conditions. Hushpuppy’s first-grade teacher, Miss Bathsheeba (Gina Montana) predicts that ominous events would come to everyone in the Bathtub: “One day the storm’s going to blow, the ground’s going to sink, and the water’s going to rise up so high they ain’t going to be no Bathtub.”

Among fancied threats is the arrival of a flock of prehistoric monsters called aurochs, beasts that resemble huge boars equipped with sets of horns protruding from their heads. (A product of the girl’s imagination?) One aspect of her adaptation to her circumstances is the belief she can talk to animals and her departed mother who “swam away” years ago. All the same, Hushpuppy, like her father, is fond of living in The Bathtub. While believing it’s “The wall that cuts us off,” she’s convinced “We got the best place on earth.”

The central relationship in the movie is between Hushpuppy and Wink, and the occasional spats between them only betray the love and affection they have for each other. “You da man,” Wink announces to his daughter on one prideful occasion.  Dwight Henry delivers a riveting portrayal of the father, and he too is without any prior acting experience.

There are already intimations of Academy Award nominations. As Hushpuppy providentially observed, “The whole universe depends on everything fittin’ together just right.” If this means giving credit where credit is due, right on.