Theater Whore: Beasts Of The Southern Wild

“There’s a little girl, her father drinks a lot, and there’s a supernatural element.” That was Cam’s description of Beasts Of The Southern Wild and I’ll be trying my damnedest to come up with a better one. This is one of those movies that makes you remember why you love going into a theater and paying money to forget the world for an hour or two. it’s the story of a little girl called Hushpuppy who lives with her dad Wink in this place called The Bathtub. Its in Louisiana where they are on the other side of a large wall where Wink does not want to move from.

Wink treats his daughter pretty harshly but he’s always reminding her that its for her own good and that he isn’t always going to be around to protect her. Where they are is a small community but they have a lot of fun. Hushpuppy says that they have more holidays than anywhere else in the world and they party and drink and have parades. Though their living conditions are pretty damned bonkers they get by just fine. Wink starts getting progressively sicker and this angers Hushpuppy and makes her sad at the same time but the rule is to not cry. Even when someone dies there is no crying allowed.

There is an element involving these giant demon boar things called aurochs that appear throughout the movie after the ice caps melt and The Bathtub gets flooded. I’m not sure how much of this movie I want to give away. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was trying to figure out what to compare it to and its impossible. I thought Pan’s Labyrinth at first just because there was a little girl and some monsters involved but even that’s not a correct assessment because that’s like saying its like Aliens because there’s Newt and a monster. This was an original film.

I have to point out the little girl who played Hushpuppy Quvenzhané Wallis was great. Not just for a little girl either. The guy Dwight Henry who played Wink is a baker near where the movie was filmed and didn’t even want the part until the entire crew begged him. I have to point out that just the other night me and a friend were trying to figure out strong female children characters in film and couldn’t think of any that weren’t violent. Hushpuppy is a strong female character that if I had a daughter would have no fear of her emulating.