Review of Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) by Ben L — 16 Jun 2013

Last year, when I watched all the Best Picture Oscar nominees, I was completely annoyed by the nonsense that was The Tree of Life. Well, I believe Beasts might be that movie for me this year. Thankfully this film had more of a logical plot than Tree of Life, but it still slipped into that world of artsy-fartsy. I was never particularly fond of those days in English class when my teacher would spend time on symbolism in literature, and this movie demands the viewer appreciate the symbolism of completely ridiculous events. I'm obviously too dumb for this kind of film, because I had to scour the internet to even understand what happened in this movie (or at least what it meant.).

The thing is, I was excited to watch this movie because I wanted to see why Quvenzhané Wallis was nominated as a Best Actress at such a young age. Sadly I found a little girl who just acted like a little girl. I wasn't particularly impressed by her performance. Not to say she did a bad job, but she certainly didn't do anything noteworthy. In fact I wasn't enthralled by any of the acting. They all filled their roles adequately, and didn't mess up their characterizations. The problem was I didn't find myself connecting with any of the characters. They all felt cold and I struggled to empathize with them. I just wanted to yell at the screen that they were being stupid, which I doubt was the author's intention. Also, as things progressed, there were moments they seemed to be looking to draw tears from the audience. Yet I just sat there stone-faced because I was never emotionally invested in these people.

I tried with Beasts of the Southern Wild, I mean I tried hard to like it. Surprisingly, for awhile I was there and I was caught up in the story. But they kept throwing these odd symbolic moments at me that took me out of the movie. I could no longer sit back and enjoy the story, because now I was tasked with figuring out what all this crap means. By the end I just laughed at the absurdity of what we finished watching. My wife even turned to me and said "I don't get it, what in the world just happened?" I had no answer, and the movie didn't see fit to explain it for the less-enlightened viewers. Thanks to the wonders of the internet I believe I now have a firmer grasp on what was intended by these strange events, but if internet searching is a vital component of comprehending a movie, I believe that movie is not for me. I'm confident that this movie has exactly what the intelligentsia of the film industry find spectacular. It just doesn't pass the Average-Joe test.