3/5
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a heartfelt and honest independent film. It tells the unique and dazzling tale of a bayou community affectionately called the Bathtub, zeroing in on one of its most memorable inhabitants: six-year-old Hushpuppy (Wallis). Strong-willed but naive, she is buffeted by forces beyond her control, from the flooding of her town to her father's terminal disease. She is one of the most fascinating characters I can remember in recent memory, instantly believable thanks to Wallis's unerring performance. She is the reason to see this film, and is honestly probably the only reason this film was nominated for an Oscar.
The writing is mediocre at best (what little there is, as it seems the majority was improvised) and the story is bare-bones without any glue holding it together. I found myself frustrated by plot holes and unknowns, never satisfied with the story that was given to me, always wondering why we were in the situation we were in. The cinematography is visually interesting but of such low quality as to make it forgettable. The editing is surprisingly avant-garde--with its aurochs and melting ice caps and absent sense of time--which I found distracting and more than a little bit hoity-toity. All in all, the movie is a technical morass with a single shining star named Quvenzhané Wallis, a girl who manages to emerge above the waste and fight her way into your heart.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2125435/