CO-REVIEW: BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
USA 2012
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
Written by Benh Zeitlin and Lucy Alibar
Starring Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry

SYNOPSIS:  In a poor-man's post-apocalypse (in every sense of the word), a six-year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Wallis) lives in a walled-up, flooded out area known as "The Bathtub".  Her only protector is her physically and emotionally abusive, alcoholic father Wink (Henry).  But she may have to learn to fend for herself when her father falls ill, the big floods come, and gigantic, ravenous creatures known as aurochs come sniffing for human prey.

THOUGHTS:

PHIL - It's a pretty film, to be sure.  That's my strongest recommendation for it.  If you're as shallow as I am when it comes to photography, that alone might get you through this.  But while I found the premise interesting, and think that it would have made for a fantastic short film, the plot felt way too padded out.  Some great moments, but I found myself pretty bored through most of this.

ANNA - I'm generally a fan of post-apocalyptic analysis of contemporary social justice AND up for anything that has a child protagonist, so this movie is right up my alley. Wallis gives a strong performance as Hushpuppy, and I enjoyed that the film delved lightly enough into the magical realism that is really just a child's imagination. I struggled a bit with the performances of most of the adults - mostly unconvincing for film; perhaps their overdrawn characterizations come from the story's origin as a theatrical play? 

PHIL - Yeah, I'm not one to give a low-budget or independent film a pass for poor acting.  If you don't have the budget for explosions or CGI aliens, isn't performance the main thing you should be focusing on?  I'm all for sci-fi/fantasy as allegory (most of the best works are really about the here and now, not the far future), but I felt like this was a little too on-the-nose with the Katrina thing, without having anything particularly interesting or insightful to say about it.  The more direct you are, the more it just comes off as a polemic, without having its own story to tell.

ANNA - Even with some of the issues, I'll probably be listing this among my top ten 2012 films, just for the character of Hushpuppy. B+ is too low but it's not quite an A- either. 

PHIL - B++, then?  I wouldn't begrudge someone liking this film - It's different enough, and I get why it strikes such a strong chord with some people.  It just didn't really speak to me, and I feel like it was resting too comfortably on concept to really take and expand the story to where it needs to go.

PHIL REVIEW:  3 (AMUSED BY)
ANNA REVIEW:  6 (LIKE)