Beasts of the Southern Wild

In 2012, it was like a breath of fresh air seeing a young actress, new to the scene, so encompass her character that, despite following it up with another Oscar darling, 12 Years a Slave, and a high-profile musical remake that also broke some boundaries, this would be the film she was most associated with as of this writing. I’m talking about Quvenzhané Wallis, a five-year-old girl whose parents lied about her age at her audition for Beasts of the Southern Wild in order to get her in to see the casting director. Wallis so charmed them that she was chosen out of 4,000 candidates and carried her charm and natural acting talents all the way to the Academy Awards as the youngest nominee for Best Actress in Oscar history. Some believe the only reason she didn’t win that year was because Academy voters couldn’t pronounce her name, a reason that is dubious at best. Whatever the case, she didn’t win that year but won our hearts in a film that is both unique and memorable. Beasts of the Southern Wild may not have gotten the media attention the way her starring role in Annie did, but it is the better picture and is quite the feather in her hat. What a film to debut in, especially at her age. 

This film is categorized as a magical realism drama, a combination that we so rarely see. It gets this categorization from a specific element in the film that feels like a more dark rendition of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. This element of the film is pushed more towards the background, making an appearance in bits and pieces before coming forward in a big way in the climax. Most of the film is planted firmly in reality, taking advantage of a recent natural tragedy that occurred a few years earlier in the southern United States. Hurricane Katrina caused a lot of devastation in southern Louisiana in 2005. I was traveling the South at the time and remember being grounded for several days waiting for the storm to pass before getting the go-ahead to drive through New Orleans and back up north towards Shreveport. The destruction was horrible in the city, but what I didn’t see firsthand was how the hurricane affected those living in impoverished communities on the wrong side of the levees. That’s where Beasts of the Southern Wild takes place and where we will spend the bulk of the narrative. 

The setting is an island in the Louisiana bayou called the “Bathtub.”  This island is considered a beautiful place to live by the residents, specifically Wink (Dwight Henry) and his daughter Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis). Bathtub lies on the wrong side of the levee system that protects the land to the north, which means that when floods come in, Bathtub can find itself underwater, unprotected by the Levees. Hushpuppy’s mother is absent from the picture, supposedly having swam away into the ocean, but this could be hyperbole on the part of Wink; the film doesn’t tell us either way. 

At a community schoolhouse, Miss Bathsheba teaches the children of Bathtub about prehistoric creatures called aurochs that terrorized ancient cavemen and ate their children, showing her classroom a tattoo on her leg of giant boar-like creatures rather than the traditional wild cattle. She teaches them that the cavemen didn’t bemoan their fates and that the children should remember this and learn how to survive because the fabric of the universe will soon “unravel”, the ice caps melt, and the Bathtub will end up underwater. Hushpuppy imagines the ice breaking, releasing these aurochs to run free towards Bathtub. 

Hushpuppy lives in a separate trailer from her father and is more-or-less self-sustaining, but one day she comes home to find her father missing, leaving her to fend for herself. When he finally returns, he is wearing a hospital gown and bracelet. He believes he is dying but refuses at first to let her know about it. Later, he will reveal this to her, but she will not accept the news. 

Meanwhile, the weather in the area worsens, and many residents of Bathtub flee the area before the impending flood. Wink takes Hushpuppy back to their places to ride out the storm, encouraging others to do the same. The flooding destroys everything around them and is likely permanent, but Wink comes up with a plan to blow a hole in the levee to allow the water to recede; but Miss Bathsheba insists that this will only bring people into Bathtub to forcibly remove everyone from the area, ostensibly for their own good.

When you watch this film, you would be surprised that it was co-written and directed by a white man from the north. It feels so authentically Black that you would be forgiven for believing a Southern Black person was behind the story. Benh Zeitlin is a Jewish man from New York City making his big-screen debut with this film. It is based on Lucy Alibar’s one-act play Juicy and Delicious, and Zeitlin teamed up with Alibar to expand it into a feature-length film. The final result is a movie that captured the imaginations of critics worldwide, earning it the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at that year’s Sundance Film Festival, among others. It also competed for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. 

Despite the fantastical elements revolving around the imaginary aurochs, this is a fairly grounded film. It explores themes of survivalism and freedom. When we are first introduced to Hushpuppy and Wink, we assume that he is a hard man, abusing or neglecting his daughter. She lives by herself, cooks her own food, and doesn’t seem to have much of a relationship with him at all. But the realities are a bit more complicated. He is preparing her for a time when he knows he will be gone, a victim to a disease that he says  is “eating his blood.”  He does love her and looks after her, but he is fully aware he may be gone soon, and she will need to be prepared for that day. But he does so without telling her that that day is coming soon, so when he does finally reveal it to her, she doesn’t accept the answer, proclaiming that he will never die. 

A lot has been written about Wallis’ performance, and it is deserving of all the accolades it got. But not enough is said about Dwight Henry. This was his debut, too, and he got plenty of accolades at the time. But he was overlooked at the Academy Awards, which is a crime. This is a powerful bit of acting done with a minimal amount of screen time. Henry has to portray the stern father figure without taking things too far and becoming unlikable. It’s such a delicate balancing act, and there are moments early on that feel right on the edge of being too much. But when Wink has to confront Hushpuppy and try to convince her to leave him behind because he doesn’t want her to see him die, Henry is conveying to her, and to us the audience, the depths of his love for her and why he has been the way he has this whole time. It’s a masterful performance that deserves to be recognized.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a wonderful film that really captures what it is like to live in extreme poverty in the Deep South. I lived in Louisiana for about a year in the mid-1990s, and I saw places like this out on the bayous. It’s incredible that someone from New York City could capture it so well, but that could be Alibar’s influence on the script. However it happened, this feels authentic to the area and tells a story that can only work in this setting. There really is no place like the Deep South, and this story wouldn’t be nearly as effective had it taken place somewhere else. 

Quvenzhané Wallis has continued to act, but it has been sporadic, at least on the big screen. For as talented as she is, she deserves to be more prominent in mainstream films. As of this writing, she is more prominent on television than in theaters, and perhaps that is where she prefers to be. At least she hasn’t quit acting altogether, as so many child performers do when they grow up. One day, she will have another breakout role, and the world will rediscover her talent.

The film that brought her to our attention is at times breathtaking, heartbreaking, and emotionally raw. It’s also beautiful in its own way. Those of us who have lived in these areas of the world will especially take to the setting and the people because we have known people just like this. But that doesn’t mean the film is just for us. There is stuff to be found here that everyone can latch on to. After all, it is about the human condition, even if that condition is at times on the extreme end of things. We can see that and empathize with it, even if we are at the opposite end of things in our own lives. It’s what connects us as humans and helps us connect with those who are from a world much different from our own. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Dan Janvey, Josh Penn, and Michael Gottwald

Best Director: Benh Zeitlin

Best Actress: Quvenzhané Wallis

Best Adapted Screenplay: Lucy Alibar and Benh Zeitlin

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Release Date: June 27, 2012

Running Time: 93 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Starring: Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry

Directed by: Benh Zeitlin