So much average

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

I watched The Beasts of the Southern Wild with my wife, and if she hadn't been with me, I would have walked out. While the acting and cinematography are pretty good, the story – if there is a story – was frankly, rubbish. I know my lack of understanding was partly due to my extreme difficulty in understanding a young girl speaking in a squeaky voice with a broad Louisiana dialect, but even if I had understood every single word, I doubt whether my opinion would have changed very much.The movie drifts from reality to fantasy at the drop of hat, and for the most part, I have no idea which was which – as even the reality was more or less a fantasy. I confess I knew next to nothing about this movie before I sat down to watch it, which is unusual for me, as normally I like to research a film's subject matter ahead of viewing. So I admit this did not help my enjoyment - as the film was unremittingly grim and depressing -I think! I don't believe there was a single second of humour in its entire length. To make matters worse, I now find that all the major film critics unanimously have raved about this film, giving it their top star rating and generally drooling over every unfathomable aspect of it.I was beginning to think that either I had lost it, or that I watched the wrong movie, when I happened to chance upon a piece by Vince Mancini entitled, 'The Case against Beasts of the Southern Wild'.Phew! Thank God I'm not the only one out here in movie audience-land that thinks that the movie was basically a load of old rubbish.Here are a few choice snippets from Mr Mancini's lengthy and erudite piece."As a critic….. making sure the films you champion are worthy, to keep from burning your audience and becoming the boy who 'cried wolf', making film critics even more irrelevant than we already are…""… Beasts of the Southern Wild is a critic-bait film …""….this tale of deep south swamp hobos and feral children that eat cat food has all the depth of one of those Levis slam poetry commercials. I thought we weren't supposed to fall for the Magic Negro and the Noble Savage any more Yet here it is, a whole movie full of them, plus folksy Cajuns who can't open their mouths without homespun crypticisms aw shucksing their way out….""… it's more like someone using poetry to obfuscate a story that wouldn't work as prose, because there just isn't much there. A lot of swamp-jazz hocus pocus and gumbo mumbo jumbo, so to speak…"There is much, much more, but I would imagine that the above is sufficient for you to get the general idea. There is a movie-God out there somewhere. I am not alone in wanting my movies to make some kind of sense, or in some way uplift me, excite me, shock me, amuse me, titillate me or provoke me. This movie did nothing except puzzle me.

Moving, but clumsy and unfocused movie. Emotional story of togetherness and perseverance through major adversity. However, plot often seems random and rambling, even pointless. Comes together in the end though, but the journey is sometimes a bewildering and confusing one.Good performance by Quvenzhane Wallis in the lead role (who, at 9 years old, became the youngest ever nominee for the Best Leading Actress Oscar award). However, Dwight Henry, who played her father, deserves just as much credit and award nominations. A searing performance. Good supporting cast.

This is perhaps the best film that I have seen since the turn of the millennium. In fact it's hard to believe that the characters in it really are actors, that's how magically real it is. Still, it also appears as surreal. The simple universe of the Bath Tub, with the struggle to survive and the fight against being evacuated by the officials on one side, and a young girl's thoughts and dreams about the universe and seeing her mama on the other side, is brilliantly mixed in to an epic creation perhaps beyond any film I have ever seen. Only 'Underground' and 'Brazil' is matching this. The acting is superb and it's very hard not to believe that the characters are from real life, something very rare these days. Above all actors are Quvenzhané Wallis in the main role and Dwight Henry as her dying dad. Evereyone and everything else is also simply terrific, all the way from directing to photography, screenplay, casting, makeup, editing and special effects to costume design, set decoration and everyone in the art department. I have to mention them all, because they all deserve top credits. It's hard to understand that this film didn't get any of the Oscars it got nominated to. The cast and crew certainly deserve all the awards and nominations they got. If the rating could go to 11 or 12, I would have given it another star or two. I will see this film again.

BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD is one of those Oscar-winning movies that I missed out on seeing the first time around, and I really didn't have much of a motivation to actually watch it since the Academy Awards aren't terribly important to me. Still, I am glad that I finally decided to break down and watch it because there were aspects of it that really spoke to me on an emotional level.It stars Quvenzhane Wallis as Hushpuppy, a young girl who lives with her father in a Louisiana bayou community called the Bathtub. There isn't a concrete story, per se, instead following Hushpuppy around as she learns how the world works and is gradually exposed to what a harsh place it can be. One central theme is the fragility of human communities, and how one thing going wrong can lead to loss of balance and equilibrium. A prime real-world example of this, and one that I think the film took inspiration from, is Hurricane Katrina. This is never addressed in the film, either directly or indirectly, but the specter of that natural disaster hangs over it like a cloud. There is also fragility in the sense that the levee is the only thing that keeps the Bathtub functioning and thriving, and its destruction radically changes life for its residents.Another theme, which was more applicable to me than the proudly defiant and resilient Bayou community, was that of bravery and courage in the face of death. Having recently (yesterday), just gone through the loss of my grandfather, the way in which Hushpuppy has do deal with the impending loss of her father hit very close to home. And connecting to the previous theme, her father is a vital part of her world and losing him is something she has to come to terms with, even for being so young and impressionable. This brings me to my general impression of the film, and that is a child's view of the world, innocent and optimistic. We often try to shield our young from the trials and travails that life sometimes has in store, but inevitably they will experience these things and we need to prepare them for when that time comes.As far as quality goes, I could take or leave the hand-held shooting style but I will at least admit that it works in a naturalistic sort of way and meshes well with the naturalistic performances given by the cast. The performances themselves were decent, and Quvenzhane Wallis was particularly good, although I would probably chalk this up more to the director than Wallis herself. I also appreciated the on-location shooting which shows off the natural beauty of the Lousiana bayou. What didn't quite work for me, and maybe it's because I didn't quite "get" it, was the aurochs. The metaphorical use of these extinct creatures came off as a little too pretentious for me and the film probably would have been just as effective without them. Perhaps they were supposed to represent the "beasts" in the title but there were already enough real animals in the film to illustrate Hushpuppy's connection with them, and of course the "human animal." Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed this film. It started off a little bit on shaky ground, but as the film progressed it grew on me and I was completely on-board with it by the end. It might be too artsy for some due to its meandering story structure and ponderous voice-over, but it does a good job of probing the psyche of a child and examining how we as humans fit into the natural world. If Terrence Malick is too difficult to get into for you but you still like a thought-provoking, imaginative film, then this will probably do just fine.