Beasts of the Southern Wild
Nature and fantasy blur for a child of the bayou.
Directed by Benh Zeitlin
(PG-13)
“Sometimes miraculous films come into being, made by people you’ve never heard of, starring unknown faces, blindsiding you with creative genius,” said Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times. This is such a movie and “one of the year’s best.” Benh Zeitlin, directing his first feature, sets his story about a young girl and her alcoholic father in a poor bayou community where locals fear an oncoming storm and trade tales of prehistoric creatures unleashed by melting ice caps. Given such themes, what’s surprising is how happy and “inspired by poetry” the picture is, said David Denby in The New Yorker. Schoolgirl Quvenzhané Wallis, an untrained child actor, displays palpable amusement in backwoods life, while Dwight Henry as her father (a baker in real life) “gives a performance of convulsive power.” The film could be thought of as “outsider art: patched together with found materials” and “evocative of a truly American attitude of eccentricity, boldness, transcendence,” said Steven Rea in The Philadelphia Inquirer. It transports us to a peculiar, magical place that somehow makes us feel “weirdly at home.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
Scientists want to fight malaria by poisoning mosquitoes with human blood
Under the radar Drugging the bugs
By Devika Rao, The Week US Published
-
Crossword: March 31, 2025
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku medium: March 31, 2025
The Week's daily medium sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published