Best Picture nominee Beasts of the Southern Wild is my last review of the films up for Oscar. First-time feature director Ben Zeitlin chose two leads with no acting experience to carry his story of the people of bayou country.
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry) – This year’s most surprising Best Picture Oscar nominee, Beasts of the Southern Wild takes us deep into the bayou country of South Louisiana. Shot there and starring local Nazie Quvenzhane, Beasts tells the story of a gifted young girl, Hushpuppy, who lives alone with her father, Wink (Dwight Henry). As poor as you get, the family barely subsists. Hushpuppy draws and dreams, shows amazing resilience, and has a vivid imagination, all to escape her reality. It is hard to tell whether father or daughter is the actual caregiver. Either way, the love is palpable even though it is tinged with anger, resentment, and a bit of physical abuse.
The story is almost less important than the setting. Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana, is located on the wrong side of the levees, subjected to the battering of storms. The people there live largely off the sea. They seem reasonably happy to live an isolated life albeit devoid of anything vaguely resembling what the rest of us would consider culture. There isn’t a radio or television in sight. It is squalor, pure and simple. But the people care about each other. After all, they share a different type of culture, one that seems primitive and foreign. If the film were set in Africa or South America, we would perhaps relate to it better than to think this is right here in the United States.
When the big storm comes – we could easily conclude that it was Katrina – the parish is devastated. Those who evacuated seem wise but Wink, Hushpuppy, and a small group of locals hunker down and survive … barely. Hushpuppy shows resolute strength, heeding Wink’s command never to cry. She is headstrong, determined and stubborn just like her father. The film is about survival from the beasts – the storm, the conditions, the poverty, and the creatures in Hushpuppy’s imagination.
Ms. Wallis, now 10, beat out hundreds of the locals for the role at the age of 5. The youngest Oscar nominee in history, she looks coached but not forced. There are half a dozen scenes in the film where she actually shows a real ability to act. While the film focuses on her – she is also the narrator, which feels forced – the glue of the movie is Wink. Dwight Henry may be a more amazing story than Nazie. Henry owned the Buttermilk Drop Bakery and Cafe in the Seventh Ward of New Orleans, located just across the street from the agency casting the film. Never having acted before, Henry did a reading that impressed first-time feature film director Ben Zeitlin. A Queens, New York, native, Zeitlin got money from Sundance Labs and a private foundation to finance the movie that cost under $2 million. The list of thank yous at the end of the film includes seemingly hundreds of people. The longest of longshots, Beasts of the Southern Wild has made about $20 million so far.
Zeitlin uses those shaky, hand-held camera techniques that give the movie a documentary feel. The editing is a bit uneven, however, perhaps the product of having only a few days to finish the movie after principal shooting to have it ready for the Sundance Film Festival. It is no accident that the film feels raw and unvarnished. The screenplay, adapted by author Lucy Alibar from her own play, Juicy and Delicious, is taut and captivating.(Zeitlin and Alibar met as kids.)
For as surprising as it is, Beasts of the Southern Wild is not necessarily a must-see. Whether it deserved a Best Picture nomination, eclipsing other independents like The Sessions, The Master, Moonrise Kingdom, Hyde Park on Hudson, and Hitchcock is very arguable. Perhaps the fact that it comes from a first-time feature film director, two individuals in their first roles, and funding from Sundance tipped the scale with the voters. Well worth the time, Beasts is an adventure that is a disturbing celebration of human endurance.