Stars: Quvenzhane Wallis, Dwight Henry, Levy Easterly, Gina Montana
Director: Benh Zeitlin
Oscar History: 4 nominations (Best Picture, Director, Actress-Quvenzhane Wallis, Adapted Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars
Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she lived with her daddy in The Bathtub. Talk about a line delivery-in the hands of a lesser filmmaker, this film would have become trite, preachy, disingenuous, but thanks to Benh Zeitlin, who is set to become a filmmaker to watch, we get a miraculously executed, beautifully told little tale of magical realism.(Spoilers ahead) The film is the story of Hushpuppy, a young girl played by Wallis, who lives in the Bathtub (loosely inspired by the Isle de Jean Charles in Southern Louisiana), who is the daughter of an unorthodox father (Henry). She has her own house, and spends much of her day learning from those around her and taking care of her pets, which range from pigs to dogs to chickens. She is also our story's narrator, and much of the movie plays as the tale that Wallis invents in her head, while we are treated to beautiful and sometimes tragic-looking shots of a Katrina-ravaged New Orleans.
The film progresses with Hushpuppy and her father riding out a storm in the Bathtub (presumably Katrina, though the name is never mentioned outright), and then waking up to find all of their land destroyed by the floods, with only their house and their boat (a somehow floatable bed of a truck) and their spirits to drive them through. The film progresses slowly from here, as they discover which of the Bathtub's residents have stayed in the area, which have gone away, and which have died. As the film progresses, Hushpuppy's father is determined to stay in the Bathtub, even though his health is clearly failing, and they break the levees to get the water out of the Bathtub so they can survive. The damage, unfortunately, is already too great, and they are still forcibly evacuated from the Bathtub and forced into a shelter (which Hushpuppy likens to a fish tank), and while Hushpuppy's father is forced to undergo surgery, this is not enough, and as the film closes, he dies, and is put out to sea.
The film sounds like a bit of a downer, but it's really about those moments of freedom in life. Wallis is a wonder in her role as Hushpuppy, completely uninhibited and taking control of the character. While child actors often have the question mark "is it the actor or is it a very well-structured director who is giving us the performance," whomever is responsible should be proud of the very real, very deeply felt performance that is there for us to see.
The movie relies heavily on magical realism, to the point where I felt even Gabriel Garcia Marquez would be proud-when, toward the end of the movie we are treated to Hushpuppy standing up to the ancient Aurochs or when she sees a woman who appears to be her mother at the Elysian Fields, it's hard to know when the game of pretend has ended and what is truly there, which is the whole point of magical realism, and it works beautifully on the screen.
I will say that I wasn't 100% taken with the film. The movie loses steam the further it gets away from the Bathtub, and the scenes in the hospital didn't ring quite as strongly with me. And while Wallis, a first-time performer, nails her work, Dwight Henry, her onscreen father, has many of the hang-ups of a late-to-life actor that make his character less believable, and his work seems more stilted, which takes away from the film when he's the scene's focus.
Overall, though, this was a fun and unexpected entry in the year's Best Picture race, and one that I very much recommend. With just one more to go for me (this afternoon's Amour), I am curious-which of the Best Picture nominees are you most hoping takes home the trophy? And what do you think the future holds for Wallis and Zeitlin?
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