Review of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) by Aldebaran937 — 24 Jan 2013

I experienced BotSW as incorporating several themes without pushing a "message". Like viewing a painting, you can step back and see the whole thing and not try to justify or critique each stroke.

Ugliness and chaos are juxtaposed with beauty and community. There is a sense that the characters are intensely holding on to their life in the "Bathtub", and yet the Beasts of Change and Death have been awakened, and the inevitability of their arrival is undeniable.

Many viewers may not get past a feeling that the child, Hushpuppy, needs her life to be upgraded, that she lives in unacceptable conditions. The film emphasizes her adaptability and capacity for learning hard and simple truths about the nature of life on earth as she is living in a setting that does not shield children in all the ways we "civilized" people have come to expect.

There is harshness from her father, for example, and yet his intense love for her is also apparent along with his desire that she be strong enough to deal with the realities of their life. "Everybody loses the thing that made them.