Once there was a Hushpuppy, and she live with her daddy in the Bathtub.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a 2012 fantasy drama film directed by Benh Zeitlin and adapted from Juicy and Delicious, a one-act play by Lucy Alibar (who co-wrote the film along with Zeitlin).
The film follows the story of six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) who lives with her father on an island off the coast of Louisiana called “the Bathtub”, blocked off from civilization by a huge levee. Hushpuppy and her community face destruction from the changing environment, including a mass flood and prehistoric beasts released by the melting ice caps. Meanwhile, Hushpuppy’s father, Wink (Dwight Henry), is suffering from a mysterious illness.
The film was a great success on a relatively minimal $1.2 million budget, and received four Academy Award nominations — Best Picture, Best Director (Zeitlin), Best Adapted Screenplay (Zeitlin & Alibar), and notably Best Actress for Wallis. The nomination made Wallis, 9 years old at the time, the youngest Best Actress nominee in history; she currently still holds the title, as well as those of being the first 21st-century-born Oscar nominee and the second-youngest Oscar nominee in historynote .
Examples:
- Abusive Parents: Wink unambiguously loves Hushpuppy, but is verbally and physically abusive towards her, and is neglectful to the point of having her live unsupervised in a separate house. Even after she accidentally burns it down, he only begrudgingly lets her live with him and treats her cruelly. He changes for the better before he dies.
- The Alcoholic: The main residents of Bathtub are all heavy drinkers and are usually seen in a state of drunkenness. Wink is no exception, and he even serves Hushpuppy a cup a liquor late in the film. She sips it and frowns.
- Amphibious Automobile: Wink's boat is made of pickup truck parts.
- Apocalypse How: At the beginning of the film, the Bathtub is cut off from civilization by a huge levee, and people live in a postindustrial level of civilization. When the rain comes, the entire Bathtub area is flooded, animals start to die and some of the people who didn't leave were drowned.
- Arc Words: "No crying".
- Artistic License – Medicine: The doctor at the shelter keeps insisting on talking to Wink about his health in front of a large crowd despite Wink's explicit demand to keep that information away from his daughter. In reality, it's illegal to disclose someone's medical information in public without their permission.
- Bittersweet Ending: Wink dies, but not before seeing proof that his daughter has found her way in the world, while Hushpuppy has grown into her own as the independent and strong child he wanted her to be.
- Coming of Age Story: Hushpuppy must learn to face the adversities of life.
- Cosy Catastrophe: After the flood, the remaining Bathtubbers still have electricity and enjoy plenty of seafood and a seemingly unlimited stockpile of beer.
- Crapsack World: The Bathtub, from the perspective of the people who don't live in it. Even if the flood didn't come, it's implied the place was doomed.
- The Dandy: Despite living in Bathtub, a makeshift encampment in the swamp, one of the residents is always seen in a waistcoat and bowler hat. He even wears his bowler when swimming.
- Disaster Scavengers: The people in the Bathtub live in a world constructed from detritus, but they prefer this lifestyle and find Bathtub to be beautiful, in contrast to the modern, urban world of the mainland, which they find ugly.
- Doomed Hometown: The Bathtub is a community of squatters just outside of the Louisiana levees. Early in the film, a teacher tells them that rising sea levels will eventually wipe out the community, and then the residents will have to fend for themselves.
- Full-Boar Action: The aurochs look like horned pigs rather than bovine, presumably because there are no cows in Bathtub, but Hushpuppy is familiar with pigs.
- Hands-Off Parenting: Hushpuppy lives in her own trailer apart from her dad. She moves in with her dad after she sets her trailer on fire with her gas stove.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: A repeated theme throughout the movie.
- Incurable Cough of Death: Wink increasingly coughs as his condition worsens.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Wink has two modes of parenting: shouting and sullen silence. But he clearly loves his daughter and is willing to do anything for her, including brave a hurricane or send her away so she doesn't have to watch him die.
- Kid Hero: Hushpuppy is a girl about 6 or 7, who manages to lead both adults and children. Wallis's audition (included as an extra on the DVD) took place when she was 5. She was 6 when she appeared in the movie, but 9 by the time she received her Oscar nomination.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Whether Hushpuppy's visions of aurochs are real or fantasy is not discussed. (It's implied, but never confirmed, that Wink can see them in a late scene.)
- Missing Mom: Hushpuppy's mother is not on the scene. Later in the film, Hushpuppy and the gang end up in what seems like a brothel, and Hushpuppy meets a woman who is implied to be her mother. Hushpuppy takes back the fried gator that the woman cooks for her back to her dad, as her dad has mentioned that her mother killed and cooked a gator for him on the day of her conception.
- NO INDOOR VOICE: Everyone in the Bathtub, but especially Wink. At least until he gets sick.
- Not in Front of the Kid!: Wink becomes furious when the doctor at the shelter won't stop talking about his medical condition in front of Hushpuppy, despite his protests.
- Only Sane Man: Walrus, who is loyal to the community, but strongly considers evacuating in the face of the storm, and refuses to join in Wink's destruction of the dam.
- Parental Abandonment: The three girls under Ms. Bathsheba's care; their parents are never seen or mentioned. It's implied that their families evacuated The Bathtub and left them there.
- Secretly Dying: Wink keeps his health condition a secret from Hushpuppy. He vanishes for a few days and returns wearing a hospital gown and bracelet, refusing to discuss the matter. At the shelter, he becomes irate when a doctor tries to discuss his health in front of Hushpuppy.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Subverted with Hushpuppy as she looks very uncomfortable when she is forced to wear a frilly blue dress and has her hair plaited at the shelter. Her friends, who also had this happen to them, don't seem to mind though.
- Soap Opera Disease: Hushpuppy's father Wink has a mysterious illness, with the veins over his heart becoming blackened. It causes him an Incurable Cough of Death and Blood from the Mouth. The only explanation he ever gives is that his blood is "eating itself".
- Solar Punk: The film starts with a teacher who warns about global warming and the rising sea levels, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. The people in the Bathtub refuse to let a levee ruin their way of life, so they break it down. Then the city government forcibly removes them from the Bathtub, so they rebel even more. The film is steeped in environmentalism and has anti-authoritarian characters, but the Bathtub manages to retain a sense of happiness with their way of life.
- Unreliable Narrator: The story is presented through the perspective of Hushpuppy, an imaginative young child. She has visions of giant beasts, which are implied to be her imagination. The beasts are based on the tale her teacher told about aurochs, but they're presented as giant boars with horns, as pigs are the closest animal that Hushpuppy is familiar with.
- Viking Funeral: Wink gets one on a raft made of car parts.
- Wasteland Elder: Wink, the protagonist's father, is the authoritative and determined leader of a shantytown at the edge of a levee. The residents are imperiled by floodwater and live apart from the outside world.